


Hecate's Children

by paleogymnast



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Mutants, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24931969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paleogymnast/pseuds/paleogymnast
Summary: In the early 2020s, in a world already filled with turmoil and uncertainty, Homo sapiens variens emerged on the scene. Denoted by their distinctive markings, these telepaths, telekinetics, truthsayers, timewinders and other mutants exhibited powers that seemed straight out of comic books, and had the potential to do both great and terrible things. Unfortunately, they became a universal target for fear and hatred. Fifty years later, mutants are hunted, persecuted across a fractured, post-apocalyptic landscape. A decade ago, the last mutant safe haven in North America was wiped out by the Variant Affairs Commission. Now Jared Padalecki, newly promoted VAC agent, and Jensen Ackles, former mutant freedom fighter, must work together to unravel the mystery of what happened to Haven before VAC exercises a final strike to end mutants for good.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 38
Kudos: 75
Collections: Supernatural and J2 Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Artpost for:Hecate‘s Children by paleogymnast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24927724) by [romachebella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romachebella/pseuds/romachebella). 



> Many thanks to my wonderful beta, Carlos T, for last-minute editing and brainstorming on this, as I kept revising the story up until the last possible moment. Many thanks also to the wonderful [spn-j2-bigbang](https://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/) mods for organizing this challenge for another year.
> 
> Please read the warnings on this fic. If you have any questions about content or whether the story may be triggering, please either ask me by PM here or on LJ or don't read the fic. I have tried to list everything I think could be particularly triggering, but everyone's experiences are different, so please ask if you are unsure. Thanks!

**  
_July 1, 2070, Seattle, Pacific and Interior States of America_   
**

Dawn broke over Seattle, the light bleak and cold where it stretched like tepid, lemony fingers among the cavernous voids between the city’s aging skyscrapers. It was July, summer, yet at ground level neither warmth nor brightness penetrated. Fitting for the grim task ahead.

“Alpha One to Control. Two tangos in the parking attendant booths inside the west garage entrance. Four more inside, four at the loading dock. Over.” Chau’s voice crackled to life over the radio.

Jared pressed his gloved hand to his ear where the helmet’s ear protection rested over his cowl and tapped to adjust the volume. “Acknowledged. Tal?”

“No tangos stationed at the east vehicle exit, but I count three on patrol inside. Service door on southeast corner is clear. Tenth floor patrol has line of sight on the service door, but they’re on a circuit, and there’s a minute fifty gap where they don’t have eyes on,” Agent Tal’s voice was calm and clear, clinical almost to the point of being detached, the underlying steadiness the only hint at the true intensity she brought to every situation.

“Approach options on southeast corner?” Jared asked leaning back into the building’s shadow from his vantage point two blocks away. He ran his left hand over his uniform’s armored mask, adjusted his eye pro, careful to make sure his face wasn’t exposed, then kept running his hand over his gear, checking connections, adjusting plates, making sure everything was in place and positioned so he would have maximum flexibility. His pulse was beginning to rise, the twinge of anticipation creeping low into his gut, a hint of the challenge promised ahead.

“We can cross from the alley, but that leaves us exposed for way too long. It would be easy to spot us if there are any patrols higher up, all they’d have to do would be glance in the right direction and we’d be on display,” Chau answered.

“Option two, we double back down the hill past second where the contours of the street terracing will hide us, cross to the west, and then stay within the building’s shadow until we get back up there,” Tal suggested.

“That sounds like a hike,” Agent Berry’s voice came across the radio loud and clear.

“Berry, nice of you to join us,” Jared said, casting a glance over at Olsson, who, like him, was clinging to the slightly grime-coated alley wall while the team got into position. “Are you in position?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Berry teased. “I am set up on the broken glass and crumbling asphalt masquerading as the roof of the building one block north. Eyes on upper level patrols, and north and northwest pedestrian exits. Northeast is slightly obscured, but the only vantage point that would get me a clear shot on all three would leave me exposed to their snipers, and they do have snipers,” she confirmed. Then chuckled, “Lucky for me, their snipers are practically dead on their feet. I’ve been watching this guy on the 37th floor, clearly freezing his ass off, since there is absolutely no building exterior on that level. He keeps swaying like he’s about to nod off. Give him long enough he might just do a swan dive for us and take a header on to the pavement.” Rustling came through the coms before Berry spoke again. “Ah, got it. I’ve moved two feet to the left, still have eyes on North and Northwest, and snipers, and can now see Northeast exit through the exterior glass. I am good to go whenever you boys and girls want to strike.

“Acknowledged, Charlie One,” Jared answered, as he jogged past Olsson and tapped him on the shoulder, signaling Olsson to follow him down the alley at a jog. “Control here. Please signal when in position.”

The next couple of minutes were met with radio silence. He and Olsson leapfrogged each other up the alley, across the street, up to Fifth Avenue, across the street again, and then crept along the partially completed shell of the long-abandoned partially constructed office tower. He glanced up at the arcing top as it seemed to sway to the south, the building appearing to lean precariously. It wasn’t precarious, though, and appearances could be very deceiving. The office tower, one of several that had been nearing the last stages of construction when the world went to shit. At least that’s how Jared thought about the changes in civilization that had happened long before he was born.

In the 2020s the world had been rocked by what felt like one calamity after another, or at least that’s how Jared’s parents and grandparents had described it. First there were longstanding wars and international tensions. A wave of pandemics swept the globe, sickening and killing many. While all that was going on, social unrest and longstanding structural bias and inequality spawned a series of protests, which eventually grew into revolutions. The economy thrived and crashed and changed and crashed some more, changes happening too fast for most to keep up. And then, with everyone still fighting for justice and trying to carve out a niche for themselves in a constantly changing world, mutants started popping up all over the globe.

At first people dismissed the isolated incidents of teenagers shooting lightning bolts from their fingers or grannies becoming as strong as the hulk as tricks—deep fakes, maybe crazy adrenaline rushes under abnormally stressful situations.

Then the instances of strange behavior, mutant powers, became more prevalent. A governor’s teenage son telekinetically stopped a bullet on live TV. Strangers blurted out secrets about each other upon first meeting, recorded and retweeted over and over and over again. Viral videos of a twelve-year-old making a lake freeze in the middle of summer… And with the powers came strange markings. At first people had suspected tattoos, but the markings appeared on everyone who exhibited any of the strange powers. Soon the consensus was powers were real, the people were real.

Scientists rushed to discovery what was happening. But the results were conflicting—it was a virus, a natural mutation, it was triggered by adolescence, or menopause, or receiving gender-affirming care, or experiencing any sort of hormone fluctuation … there was a genetic predisposition, but it didn’t seem to be linked to a single gene. 

It hadn’t taken long for fears about mutants, their powers, and what they might represent, had torn the world apart. After a series of incidents that were either an organized terror campaign or a bunch of unplanned, but causally similar incidents of extreme hostility towards mutants where the mutants reacted to defend themselves, the central United States and much of Europe, and smaller parts of Asia, Africa, and South America were left in smoldering ruins. 

That was fifty years ago. Now, in the Pacific and Interior States of America, the most populous country in North America formed from the parts of the former United States and southwestern Canada, mutant existence was strictly regulated, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Variant Affairs Commission controlled those mutants allowed to remain outside of prisons or institutions.

Of course, Jared and his team weren’t VAC, they were the lead team on the Organized Crime Task Force, and today, after nearly four years of build-up and planning, they were ready to take down the leadership of the Kelana cartel, one of the largest enterprises of drug trafficking, weapons dealing, mutant trafficking, and mutant prostitutes in the world.

When all three teams had signaled they were in position, Jared said, “Control and Beta One here,” referencing himself and Olsson. “Breach on my mark, three, two, one, mark.” 

Twenty minutes later, his team of four, plus Berry across the street from her sniper’s perch, had managed to neutralize the Kelanas’ entire armed security force and had rounded up, arrested, and cuffed all three Kelana siblings and all four lieutenants. 

Of course, it turned out the Kelanas were doing more than running their North American base of operations out of the abandoned, half-finished office tower. They also had several floors serving as apartments for sex workers, dormitories for mutants being trafficked as domestic servants. The list went on and on, and after VAC showed up with its, apparently short-staffed first team, three more teams followed in its wake along with two units of militarily equipped VAC strike forces. 

As Jared looked around, heard his name being called and found himself being called over to speak to none other than the Director of the VAC himself, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

“Director Morgan,” Jared said with a hasty salute. 

Morgan instead, reached forward and shook Jared’s hand, squeezing harder than was necessary. “This is a fine job you’ve done here, son.” 

“Thank you for coming so fast,” Jared said. “Our intel suggested they had far fewer mutants on site, so our support request was—”

But Morgan wasn’t paying attention to Jared, he was glancing out of the corner of his eye as if he had seen a ghost. “Did you see something? Like a shimmer? Ripple? I swear I saw someone there,” he pointed at a nearby doorway, “and then they were gone.” 

Jared looked around in confusion, tension ratcheting up his spine. “No sir, I didn’t see anyone.”

Morgan shook his head and started to say something else when Chau, one of Jared’s team members, ran up to them. “Agent Padalecki,” he started, then bowed towards Morgan, “Director Morgan,” he turned back to Jared. “We have a discrepancy sir. But—not one or two like we get from time to time.”

“How many?” Jared asked, as Osric Chau handed over tablet, which apparently contained some sort of ledger or manifest. 

“There are supposed to be around thirty-three hundred mutants here. We’ve found three hundred. According to this chart, there are 2973 mutants unaccounted for. So, either the Kelanas dumped a ton of cargo, or we just missed a shipment out, or something is really, really wrong,” Chau finished sounding apologetic. 

Damn, he’d talked so fast, Jared hadn’t even started to skim the tablet, but there it was, in stark numbers, the discrepancy.

“Thank you, Agent Chau,” Morgan said, giving Chau a polite smile, without sounding too dismissive, even if that was what he was doing. “I need to borrow your boss for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

Jared followed Morgan away from the other agents gathered nearby over towards the edge of the open floor where the Kelanas had set up a temporary barrier to shield their activities from prying eyes and the elements. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had mutants go missing.”

“No sir,” Jared agreed.

“But you have put more effort into trying to locate them than any other Agent in Charge in any other division, including my own. I appreciate that kind of effort. Your remarkable track record speaks for itself.”

“I am confident we will get to the bottom of this issue,” Jared started to answer.

“You misunderstand me,” Morgan interrupted. “My premier team is short-staffed, and we have some chronic problems that need expert attention. Your record is impeccable. I’ve had my eye on you for years, but I knew you were building up to this. Now that you’ve taken down the Kelanas for good, I want you to come work for me. I want to transfer you to the VAC.”

A feeling halfway between excitement and terror snaked its way up Jared’s spine. When Director Morgan asked, there was no saying “no.” “I would be honored,” Jared answered. 

Morgan shook his hand again and walked away. Jensen couldn’t shake the feeling he might have just metaphorically signed his own death warrant.

~~~

**  
_Interlude--38th Floor of Abandoned Office Tower, Seattle, PISA_   
**

“You—who are you?” someone demanded. “What did you do? Why can’t they see us?” 

The figure stayed in the shadows, looking for the source of the questions. 

A weary-looking man, with dark skin and close-cropped hair, standing about six feet tall and wearing tailored jeans and a somewhat wrinkled button-down shirt stepped away from the crowd of people gathered on the 38th floor and stepped towards the figure, “Who are you,” he asked again, identifying himself as the speaker.

The figure stepped back into the shadows. “Don’t come any closer, please. I promise, it’s for all of our safety. You’re being hidden. The VAC can’t see you; the cartel can’t see you; the cops can’t see you. You’re safe.” 

“Safe?” Another voice sounded, and a blond woman who looked like she’d gotten into a fight or taken a tumble down a very rough hill. Her face, hands, and bare arms were covered in scratches that had long since scabbed over and started to heal, there was a shadow of a bruise fading along her left jaw in the stage somewhere between red and yellowish green, and her t-shirt and cargo pants were torn in several places. “The Kelanas were going to ship us up the coast to Canada. We were supposed to leave about an hour after this mess started. Now we’re stuck here. We—we can’t even get food because no one can see us. We’ve been hiding up here for six hours wondering if we were dead. So how the hell are we safe?”

“I—fuck I’ve got nothing,” the figure muttered to himself. “Look, VAC took out the entire Kelana leadership today. I was able to stop them from rounding up most of the mutants the Kelanas had stashed here. About 300 still got pinched. I—I am so sorry I couldn’t save everyone, but—there were only supposed to be about 600 mutants here according to the intel I had. There were over 3000, so if you can sit tight for a little while, I will work something out. And I promise, I will do everything within my power to make sure every single one of the 2973 mutants in this building gets to across the border to Canada and as much safety as I can find.”

“Oh yeah?” another woman came forward this time, she was petite, wiry, with dark hair that was escaping in places from the bun she’d stuffed it into at the back of her neck. Her dark brown eyes looked like bruised smudges against her golden-brown skin. Her clothes hung loosely around her frame, and she possessed the sort of _power_ in her posture and voice that made the air feel almost electric. The figure couldn’t quite make out the pattern of the alabaster-colored markings on her face, neck, and hands, but judging by the gust of wind that shot forth from her clenched fist, it was a fair bet at least one of her powers was that of an air elemental. “Do you know what you did? All of us up here, some of the people you didn’t know about—we all gave up everything to have the Kelanas smuggle us out. Sterling was a lawyer in LA when he got outed.” She indicated the man who had spoken first. “Briana’s from Canada—” she gestured at the blonde woman, “but got picked up by an undercover cop when she was in the Freehold and had to literally fight her way out of his little fucked up home prison and run across half the Peninsula to make contact. I’ve been on the streets for the last seven years since I split when my parents tried to turn me in. I ran from town to town, hiding, staying under the radar, until a stupid human kid I helped get away from bullies turned narc on me and the Kelanas were the only way I could get out.” She took a half dozen steps closer to the figure—“This,” she spun the air above her outstretched palm into a cyclone, “isn’t all I can do. So you had better figure out a way to unfuck this for us, or I promise, I will visit on you every single bit of misery the VAC will visit on us when they finally find us here.”

Silence blanketed the floor; the only audible noises were those coming from outside the skeletal office tower. 

“I’ll find a way to save us all, I promise.” The figure stepped out of the shadows, and the mutants gathered on the 38th floor all gasped in surprise at who it was.


	2. Chapter 2

**  
_Eastern Alberta, Canada, August 2070_   
**

For the last month it had been the same dream. Haven. Friends, family laughing. Saying goodnight to Jim and Samantha, and everyone else. Then waking in pain, deaf, burning, screaming. Stumbling around in the darkness, trying to understand what had happened. 

Flashes of people. Jim, wounded, but ordering him to go. Courtney, limping as she tried to drag Rachel out of the wreckage of the town they had built as everything crumbled around them. Powers useless, as Jensen couldn’t think. Just flashes and guns and VAC uniforms.

He didn’t remember running. _He wasn’t sure if he ran._ He pleaded with Jim Beaver. Jensen wanted to stay and fight, but then his whole mind went to static, and suddenly it was six months later and he was waking up in a decommissioned ward of a hospital in Regina, with Felicia staring down at him looking heartbroken, and a human doctor named Misha telling him what day it was.

Everyone died. 

Not _everyone_ , but some days it felt like it. For years, he had worked, collecting mutants, escapees from the toxic wastelands of the Central Coalition to the oppressive labor camps of the Texi-Florida Republic to the. Prisons in New England, to the well, _hell_ , that was PISA. He’d helped them escape, led them to Haven, a safe, all-mutant community in Canada, where mutants at least had some rights. And then like an idiot, that had led the VAC to their door.

They didn’t know for sure. But the hypothesis was VAC, and its ever-inventive leader, Director Morgan, must have finally either weaponized or brainwashed one or more strong telepaths into helping him. Too many mutants together, and their telepathic presence was much easier to detect. So, mutants should stay away from each other and give each other an even wider berth than did the average human.

So, with fear of another Haven, they separated, stayed away. There was no home, no community, no contact save the occasional secure, encrypted video call over satellite.

And that was how it had been for more than ten years. 

So every night, when Jensen dreamed of Haven, he awoke sweating and angry and so, so miserable. He just wanted to make it stop. Why did his mind keep going back there? It wasn’t the anniversary? He hadn’t seen any new documentaries or VAC propaganda films.

The only thing he could guess was the ever-growing feeling of someone reaching out telepathically across space. An emergence—a new mutant awakening, somewhere in PISA. 

Once upon a time, before Haven fell, mutants would reach out for Jensen. They didn’t know he was Jensen, they mostly called him Archangel, the telepath who could detect a new mutant and make arrangements to get them out of whatever godforsaken hellhole they were in before they were discovered. 

But he hadn’t been Archangel in years. Mutants either blamed him or wondered why he’d abandoned them.

Jensen would prefer to stay hidden keeping them all safe. No more heroics. No more death-defying feats of telekinesis. No long-distance mental communication. Just him. Alone. In his small cabin with drone deliveries and regular video chats with Misha and Felicia. 

But with each night, the call got louder and harder to ignore.

~~~

**  
_August 2070, Seattle, PISA_   
**

Kathryn rolled out of bed and slapped her alarm clock with extreme prejudice. It sparked and crackled under her hand, before the OLED screen blinked out. “Ugh,” she muttered as she slammed her head into the pillow in a half-hearted attempt to suffocate herself. 

After a tense minute of holding her breath and feeling a tiny modicum of tension release, Kathryn tugged her left arm out from under her pillow and glanced at her smart watch. _0550_. Great. Not only had she trashed her alarm clock, she’d slept through two alarms. With Director Morgan and Agent Padalecki expecting the team at the shoot house at 0700 for training, she wasn’t giving herself much time.

She was going to have to order another alarm clock. It would be an unacceptably stupid irony if she managed to expose herself to the VAC because she bought too many alarm clocks. She was going to have to make due with loud alarms on her phone again, and leaving it across her bedroom. At least the added distance seemed to make it slightly less likely she’d short it out, blow it up, or hit it with an EMP.

Or lasers…

Luckily, she’d never unintentionally emitted lasers. One bright point. 

Still, it had only been two weeks since she’d bought this alarm clock. She was going to have to make do for at least a few months, or she’d raise too much suspicion.

Resigned to her fate, Kathryn pulled herself out of bed, and started her morning routine. With the current transit restrictions and personal transport ban to downtown, it was going to take her at least half an hour to get to the shoot house, even with her badge. That left her with 40, make that 38 minutes to shower, brush teeth, and remove every single visible trace of her mutant identity from her skin.

Five minutes later, Kathryn was standing on the carpet in front of her dresser, situated squarely between two mirrors. She began with her hands as always, left then right, emitting controlled low intensity lasers to temporarily remove, or at least camouflage, the tattoo-like markings that littered her skin.

From what she’d learned in school, the more markings a mutant had, the more powerful they were. Of course, the people who taught that were the same people who approved a curriculum that taught second graders that they could catch a mutation by sitting in the same room as a mutant, so they should report any sightings right away. Mutant origins might have been a little, unclear, but she knew from perusing old YouTube videos and news blogs that no credible scientist had ever posited a theory that mutations passed by touch or proximity alone.

But whether the story about markings was true or not, Kathryn had a lot of them. None on her face, thankfully, but on her scalp, the back of her neck, her shoulders, back, chest, belly, hips, legs, arms, hands and feet, even her buttocks. By the time she was 15 she’d realized there was one spot between her shoulder blades where the circuit board-like pattern of blue lines was impossible to reach with her hands, so she’d gotten a tattoo, made sure it was dark enough, deep enough, and done with _just_ the right—or wrong—kind of ink that she could not realistically get it removed. That plus being underage when the tat was done and her story about trying to rebel and then seeing how wrong she was, had worked together to sell first her parents and teachers, then her college, and finally the FBI, on the idea that she wasn’t hiding anything, particularly not a mutant marking, and deeply regretted what she’d done.

On some level, part of Kathryn _did_ regret the permanence of the tattoo, the markings it covered had been a beautiful and complex series of lines and circles, crisscrossing and intersecting in a way that reminded her of a complex and futuristic supercomputer. But she couldn’t regret the tattoo, because the ruse had kept her alive so long, and had now given her a job where she was learning everything the government knew and did to keep tabs on mutants. So, she took deep breaths and thought of freedom while she painstakingly ran her hands, lasers emitting, over every inch of her body, even her crotch and the soles of her feet, to eradicate any hint of her true nature. 

Running the lasers around her left wrist again, careful to move her smart watch out of the way, she was finally done. Twenty-five minutes had passed. Well, she was down to 8 minutes to brush her teeth, don clothes, and get out the door. She could do it. 

Kathryn wasn’t going to risk being late. Especially not today, with her new boss starting after transferring to VAC from organized crime. Rumor had it he was the best investigator in the FBI. No reason to make him even more suspicious.

~~~

**  
_August 2070, Variant Affairs Commission Headquarters, Downtown Seattle_   
**

Jared walked to the end of the long hall and into the wide open room. Desks and work stations were scattered around it with glass doors leading to conference rooms set in each wall. To his right was the distinctive airlock and retinal scanner combo that signified a SCIF with a few extra scanners thrown in for extra security. As he crossed the threshold and stepped from hallway into the room proper, a light around the doorway lit up cycling from red to green and chimed with a pleasant affirmation as he crossed the invisible line. 

Two or three dozen heads popped up from their workstations and looked at Jared. None of the workers wore masks or had anything obscuring their faces. Every single person was visibly armed, and they were all standing or sitting in close quarters, much closer than standard office spacing allowed, with a few people even leaning over the same array of monitors. 

“Welcome, Agent Padalecki, to the heart and soul of the VAC,” Agent Morgan’s voice announced. 

Jared followed the voice and saw Morgan standing at the top of a short, metal, open-grating stairway placed in the middle of the far wall. He realized there were two glass doors set in that wall, one of which was currently opaqued and now open. Jared surmised Morgan must have come from that room.

“Good morning, sir,” Jared answered.

Morgan jogged down the stairs and crossed the distance to Jared, holding out his hand. 

Jared grasped Morgan’s hand in a somewhat awkward handshake. It was an antiquated, and many found it risky or offensive. Jared had heard the VAC had a lot of quirks and even more protocols designed to set it apart, and so far, about 5 seconds in, that was proving to be true. 

“Sir?” Jared asked as Morgan released his hand.

Instead of stepping away, Morgan stepped closer to him and slapped Jared on the back, pulling him in so they were standing shoulder to shoulder with Morgan’s hand resting proprietarily on Jared’s upper back. “Let me introduce you to your team.” Morgan stepped closer to a middle-aged man with pale skin and dark hair. “Agent Mark Sheppard.”

The man, Sheppard, apparently, stepped forward and took Jared’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Analysts Alexander Calvert and Samantha Smith.” 

The man and woman stepped forward and shook Jared’s hand in turn, both with crushing grips. 

“And last, but not least, our youngest agent, Agent Katheryn Newton.” 

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Newton said as she took Jared’s hand. When their skin made contact, Jared swore he could feel a spark of electricity arc from Katheryn’s hand into his own, but she did not seem to notice it, and it was gone as suddenly as it had begun.

“All good things, I hope,” Jared murmured. Was she? No… she couldn’t be. The VAC didn’t employ mutants. He checked that thought. The VAC didn’t knowingly employ mutants. They hunted them. 

“You will have an opportunity to meet the rest of these folks who run teams two and three later along with VAC command analytics and mutant community oversight coordination, later,” Morgan said gesturing expensively at other people in the room, some of whom nodded or waived at Jared.

“Hello,” he said again, nodding at several people in acknowledgement. 

“And I believe you know, or have at least spoken to, Agent Tapping who is our organized crime liaison.

A taller-than-average, middle-aged, muscular woman in conservatively tailored charcoal wool pantsuit with a military bearing, long brown hair gathered in a somewhat severe-looking bun low on her head stepped forward and extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Agent Padalecki,” she said. And yes, Jensen knew her voice well.

“Likewise, Agent,” he said. 

“I have to say, I am thrilled to have you on board, but I am not looking forward to having to break in your replacement in organized crime.” Agent Tapping’s smile was genuine, and Jared had a feeling he was going to miss their liaison interactions. Ironically, while they would be working for the same division, they would probably have less interaction than when they’d been in separate divisions.

Jared smiled at that. “Agent Berry has been in the agency a few years longer than me and joined Organized Crime division only a year after I did. She knows her stuff, and was right there with me planning most of it. I’m pretty sure you’ve talked to her a few times when I was indisposed. I’m sure the transition will go smoothly.”

“It might at that,” Agent Tapping agreed.

“Now Jared, If you’ll follow the rest of your team and join me in the main conference room, we have an orientation planned,” Morgan said, prodding Jared forward with the hand still resting against his back. 

Nodding in agreement, Jared followed the other two agents and analysts on Team One up the stairs and down a narrow walkway to the open, smoked glass door. 

When they were inside, the other team members spread out around the near end of the long, oval conference table, and sat down. Morgan finally took his hand off Jared’s back and stopped two chairs to the left of the end of the table and sat.

“Have a seat, please, he said, indicating the vacant chair at the head, or foot—depending on your perspective, of the table.

Jared sat, and as he slid his wheeled chair forward, realized the table was smart glass as was every wall. The VAC’s logo was projecting as a hologram hovering about 10 centimeters above the table surface, and a organizational tree that was mostly greyed out and not well-lit enough to read, was standing at the ready on the back wall. 

“Lights 50, doors armed, go secure,” Morgan said, and the room responded. The lights dimmed, the door swung shut behind Jared and locked with a hiss of negative pressure, and a faint hum suggestive of a jamming field sprung up around the room. 

“Wow, that’s not ominous or anything,” Jared mused, half under our breath. 

“Ominous, but necessary,” Morgan explained sounding relaxed and congenial. Even within our own upper echelon, we are always at risk of leaks, infiltration, mutant moles, and the like.”

A few more electronic hums and crackles sprang to life, and the air took on a heavy, oppressive feeling. Jared found himself taking a nervous glance at his hands, and out of the corner of his eye thought he noticed the blonde woman—scratch that—the younger blonde agent, doing the same. Agent Newton, he thought her name was. Interesting. He looked over at Director Morgan curiously.

“Anti-telepath counter measures and a jamming field strong enough to stop most telekinetics,” Morgan explained. “The telepath countermeasures should work against most single substance affinity manipulators.” 

Jared cocked an eyebrow as he tried to parse that. 

“Director Morgan means airbenders, geomancers, pyrotechnics, water elementals and the like,” the blonde agent responded.

Morgan gave a somewhat sour smile, but nodded at the agent graciously. “Agent Newton likes to remind us when we start using jargon that impedes communications, and she is correct about the common parlance. Also, our electronics are all hardened and shielded, which offers protections against electrokinetics. We are as secure as we can be with the state of our understanding of Variant mechanics and biology.” 

As Morgan spoke, Jared watched the reactions of his new teammates. The male technician, Abel he thought his name was, and Newton both seemed to be feeling the weight of the air with the countermeasures turned on, and Newton’s left hand twitched when Morgan mentioned electrokinetics. Interesting. 

Morgan had stopped talking, though and was now looking at Jared expectantly.

“Thank you,” Jared answered scanning the room as he spoke. “I assume gathering in here means we are discussing something highly confidential and sensitive.”

Morgan nodded. “The information we are discussing is often handled in SCIF, but in this case we are doing introductions and strategy, meaning we want to ensure our discussion is recorded any observation or ideas tracked, and hypotheses preserved for future investigation.” Morgan tapped something on the table and the hovering VAC logo disappeared. 

In front if Jared two photos and abbreviated dossiers appeared on the surface of the table. He leaned forward to take a look. 

“Are you aware of why you’ve joined us,” Morgan asked, fixing Jared with a probing look.

“You told me you were impressed with my work and had been following my career for several years, and thought my experience with mu—Variants would make me well-suited to the VAC’s work.”

“That’s the general why, and the fact you just took down the Kelana Cartel made me confident I could call you over now and not have to worry about losing you to OC Division clean up every five minutes. But that was more fortuitous than the reason for the timing of my invitation.” Morgan gestured towards the two files in front of Jared. 

“In the last six months VAC Team One has lost two agents. Agent Pellegrino was tapped to be the Deputy Director in the San Francisco office, but the reality is he took that job because it is decidedly a desk job and of three Capital offices San Francisco is the only one where the director can reliably decline field work.”

“I take it then, Director Pellegrino can no longer perform field work?” Jared concluded, unsure if he should look through the file. 

The other four agents and analysts all shifted uncomfortably.

“Director Pellegrino was severely injured in the same raid in which Agent Armstrong was killed. The details are in the dossiers I’ve prepared for you, please, feel free to take a look. At the time, we thought it was a tragic accident, albeit one we did not understand. Director, then Agent, Pellegrino was in a coma, and regained consciousness not long after. What he told us re-evaluate our priorities and the possible interconnectedness of several phenomena we have been monitoring with increasing frequency.”

Jared tapped the table in front of him and began skimming. “A bank robbery?” he asked after a few seconds. “Did the agents have the misfortune of being in the bank when the robbery started, or are your backup protocols that different than every other Division in the FBI?” Jared asked, perplexed. He ran his finger sideways flipping through a series of crime scene photos, looking at the positions of the two agents and their proximity to the bank vault. Something just did not add up.

“The same questions we asked ourselves. We thought they might have been hostages, and it turns out they were, after a fashion, but not in the way we thought. When Director Pellegrino came to, he recounted being called out to a bank robbery with the full team, only to discover there was a timewinder operating as part of the crew. He actually said there were multiple timewinders, but we didn’t quite believe that at first. Then he said we were all there, but a timewinder rewound hours, but not at the epicenter of the robbery. The crew had a phaser who phased through the vault, a telekinetic who transported the proceeds, and a teleporter who made their exit. Because Pellegrino and Armstrong were outside the effect of the timewinder they were able to get to the vault. They attempted to stop the robbery, but were attacked by the telekinetic and the phaser. Pellegrino was crushed when the telekinetic dropped the vault door on him, and Armstrong was killed when he was phased into a wall and left there.

“We arrived to chaos. The crew was gone, but the alarm has just come through with a suspected mutant involvement. Doctors were willing to dismiss the description as trauma until local law enforcement were caught in two similar traps, one in Seattle and one in Vancouver.” Morgan tapped the table again and flicked a file towards Jared. 

More crime scene photos. Then, photos of a dead mutant, the clock-hand markings unfamiliar, but he suspected denoting a timewinder. So, the mutant was dead? “I thought timeturners usually maxed out at five minutes and a couple city blocks?” he murmured aloud. 

“Usually,” Morgan answered, as Newton said, half under her breath, “That’s what we want the public to believe.”

Morgan grimaced at Newton and said to Jared, “The VAC has encountered one or two exceptional timewinders in the past, so the scope isn’t exactly unprecedented, although we’ve never encountered this sort of brazen crew before. What was a surprise is there have been three more robberies since that timewinder was killed, all with the same MO, and most recently with eyewitness statements to two different timewinders.”

“That’s somewhat concerning,” Jared agreed, although there was a hard line in Morgan’s jaw and a hint of knowing _fear_.

“Sadly, that’s just the first of your problems,” Morgan said, tapping something else on the table, and bringing up a series of reports. “This information, Jared, I know you have seen before, but I would like to remind everyone, it does not leave this room. We do not discuss this even with other VAC lead investigative teams, analysts, or our liaisons.”

Jared touched the table and began scrolling through the documents. He _had_ seen these documents before. The top document was the report from the raid on the Kelana Cartel—the “property” manifest that showed 2973 additional mutants the Kelanas had claimed to have housed on site, who were all no where to be found. He flicked to the next document and the next. He’d seen many of these before too… some were from Organized Crime Taskforce raids and ops going back years where the mutant headcount had been off. A few times by as many as 5 or 10, but usually just one or two. They weren’t all from Kelana raids or OCT cases either. There were a few others from other VAC operations, some of which Jensen had never heard of. And the reports went back years, far longer than he had been an agent.

“Now, some of those we know were missing mutants courtesy of the Mutant Revolution cell based in Alberta, Canada. But we took them out more than ten years ago, and the discrepancies continue. Some of these may be the results of traffickers offloading products and not uploading the books, or possibly escapes by mutants during raids. But at several of them, including the recent Kelana bust, have no explanation, and interrogations have turned up no leads.

“If we have mutants escaping, that needs to stop; if we have another agency poaching specimens, that also needs to stop. And if these are all just bad bookkeeping…”

Jared offered a tight smile, “We need to know so we know if there are missing mutants or not.”

“Exactly,” Morgan said. “With the new timewinder crew turning up, and the increase in frequency of their attacks since the Kelana raid, we need to know if the missing mutants may be committing crime here in our back yard. Seattle is the executive capital of PISA. We have a standard of decorum to maintain. If we cannot maintain order here, we appear weak everywhere. And weakness could lead to another Mutant Revolution rising up.”

“Which brings us to Director Morgan’s third point, and third priority for this team,” Agent Newton offered.

Morgan shot her an assessing look, but didn’t appear to be genuinely upset. 

More tapping of the table. And finally, an organizational chart, complete with a few photos, a lot of red “Xs” and even more black squares popped up on the wall at the opposite end of the table from Jared.

“This is the mutant leadership as it existed in 2059, a few months before the raid on Haven, Alberta. The Xs are the positions or people we know we got—Jim Beaver, their leader, was not killed in the initial blast, but was KIA by our recently departed Agent Armstrong. We don’t know all that much about his powers, except he had some level of telepathic ability based on the markings around his face and hands.” 

Morgan pointed to the next level on the chart. There were two Xs, a photo, and a black square. “Kim Rhodes and Samantha Ferris were killed in the bombing. We have positive genetic ID on both as well as a markings match.” He pointed to the sole photo. “This, is Felicia Day. She was their lieutenant in charge of commstech, hacking, and security. She’s a truthsayer—”

Jared let out an involuntary huff at the revelation—like a Bene Gesserit reverend mother hopped up on steroids and crossed with an even more powerful lie detector—truthsayers could determine truth or lie from any statement, discerning truth and falsehood even where the speaker did not know whether the information was true or not. They could also command others to take or not take actions, truthsayers’ commands were like an irresistible impulse forcing the compelled to do whatever the truthsayer wanted. The FBI academy had some semi-cooperative low-level truthsayers who would “demonstrate” for the academy. The experience had been… chilling. 

But as Jared mused, Morgan kept on talking. “The only way we could pull off the strike required she be offsite. We knew there was a strong risk we wouldn’t be able to bring her in afterwards. What we didn’t count on was how many of them made it out. Day went into hiding the day after the bombing. Aside from three separate reports of her in and around Regina, Saskatchewan, in the six months after the raid, we’ve had no solid leads. The best we’ve been able to get is that she’s somewhere in Canada, maybe, and ventures out about once every quarter, but no one can say where. We’ve lost two agents to destructive behavior following her compulsions, and one more, who we’re pretty sure she straight-up shot.”

Jared shuddered again. 

“This is Archangel,” Morgan said, pointing at the black square. “We don’t have a name, a photo, an age, or even a definite gender. We _think_ Archangel is male or at least has a masculine presentation, maybe.” He tipped his hand from side-to-side to show the degree of uncertainty. “We do know Archangel is probably the strongest telepath and telekinetic on the planet. We are pretty sure he was responsible for causing the 8.2 Earthquake that struck Central Texas in 2035. We know from interrogations and interviews mutants used to reach out to him from across the continent to ask for help—and by reach out, I mean, telepathically. Even ordinary low-level telepaths whose primary powers lay in different areas—he could communicate with them over thousands of miles. We’re pretty sure he could pull the moon out of the sky and use it to crush the Earth if he wanted to. 

“We also know he was severely wounded in the Haven raid. He lost his right arm, or part of his right arm—although he may have gotten medical attention later on that would conceal this. He also sustained a severe head injury, and is believed to be at least partially deaf. 

“We do not know if the head injury had any impact on his powers, although he has stayed completely off the radar for the last decade. We suspect that is at least in part due to Ms. Day and her abilities, but we also believe it is due to the suspicions we fostered in mutants through the raid. Mutants think we can track them in even small numbers, so they keep to themselves.”

Morgan went on and on, going down the list, and explaining all the ways the Haven raid hadn’t succeeded despite the rosy story of complete victory that had been sold to the press and, hell, the rest of the FBI for years and years and years.

Whatever the cause, one of the missiles had not exploded on impact, and one side of the compound was largely intact, allowing dozens of mutants to escape before VAC ground troops moved in.

Jared shuddered again, and continued reviewing the tablet. If the VAC had lied about this, then what other lies were they telling?


	3. Chapter 3

**  
_Eastern Alberta, October 2070_   
**

“Come on, Jensen, I know you,” Felicia said. “What’s wrong?”

Jensen smiled back at her concerned face, staring at him through the screen. “I’m fine.” He forced a smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Yeah, and I’m Glinda the good witch,” Felicia retorted. “You may be physically okay, but something’s bothering you.”

“Really, it’s nothing,” Jensen said, willing himself to believe what he was saying. 

“You know that doesn’t work, when you lie to yourself, I still feel the lie,” Felicia said, leaning closer to her screen, “and whatever’s going on it’s about as opposite of ‘nothing’ as you can get.”

“I felt something…” Jensen admitted, unable to quite articulate what he felt, because he still wasn’t sure.

“An emergence?” Felicia surmised. 

Jensen rocked his hand side to side. “Eh, sort of. It feels like an emergence, but it’s controlled, measured, intentional, everything that an emergence is not.”

On the monitor, Felicia cocked her head to the side. “This isn’t new, it’s been going on for a while.” A statement, not a question.

He shrugged, wrapping his arms around himself, downcast eyes falling on the unnaturally blank expanse of his right forearm, looking as the key-like swirls of a telekinetic and the sawtooth pattern of a telepath disappeared from his skin abruptly along the shiny, silvery line that demarcated the boundary between his skin and the cultured, human skin graft. “It started when I was in a dream,” his eyes flicked up to the screen, and he skewered Felicia with his gaze to make sure she understood. “A dream about Haven.”

“You mean a dream about the bombing,” Felicia supplied. 

Jensen shrugged.

“How often do you have those dreams? You told me they were getting better!”

“They were, and then they weren’t. The dreams come and go. Misha,” he said, referring to his human M.D./Ph.D., who served as both physician and psychologist, “says my mind is still trying to work something out. It don’t know if it’s recovering memories, or trying to process guilt, maybe forgiving myself, but I get these flashes, like I’m there, but the memories aren’t memories I remember having.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Felicia observed. “So, the emergence is in the dream? Do you think it has something to do with who betrayed us?”

Jensen shook his head. “It’s not in the dream, it wakes me from the dream, and then it’s there in real life. I reach for it, and the mutant is strong, desperate, and I trace it, and,” he shrugged, “they’re somewhere in the Pacific States, when I push further, it’s gone. Everything shuts down and it’s like it was never there.”

"When did this start?” Felicia demanded.

“A month or two ago.” The words sounded more like questions on his lips, but it wasn’t the passage of time of which he was uncertain, but Felicia’s reaction to it.

“That’s not even true,” Felicia said, face shocked. “When did it really start?”

Jensen shifted back in his seat and sighed, picking up the container of half-eaten ramen that was propped precariously beside his monitor. “I had the first Haven dream in early July, the second or third—”

“The third,” Felicia supplied.

“You know I hate it when you do that,” Jensen complained with a put-upon sigh.

“No, you don’t,” Felicia chuckled, “now stop changing the subject,” she added, her composure regained.

“I didn’t think it was anything but an old nightmare working its way through, only now, when I look back at it, there was this other… shadow, almost like an aura around it. Something pushing through that couldn’t quite make itself heard.”

Felicia was frowning again on his monitor. 

“Okay, tell me,” Jensen prompted.

“It feels more like—the shadow could make itself heard, but it wanted you to think it couldn’t and it wasn’t sure how loud to be.”

“Which should make zero sense, except that when I started consciously acknowledging the presence, it felt like an emergence that wasn’t. Like someone was trying to fake an emergence? Or remember how their emergence was and project that? Or imagine how theirs would have been had they had a normal emergence…”

“The last one,” Felicia said.

“Before you ask, I already thought it could be a VAC experiment to fake a mutant, but I can feel with absolute certainty that is not correct.” 

“And you are absolutely correct with your _feeling_.” Felicia teased. Then, sobering, “Seriously though Jensen. Something is off her. I can’t put my finger on it, but nothing is coming up as truth. It’s all a little off. And it freaks me out that you’re having Haven nightmares again. Can you push it out, keep the fake emergence from reaching for you?”

“That’s the thing,” Jensen sided. “I don’t feel it when I’m awake, only when I’m sleeping, and no amount of pushing it away will make it stop. After the second night, I tried. But whomever, whatever is causing it, they’re screaming for help, when they actually want to be heard.”

~~~

**  
_October 2070, VAC Headquarters_   
**

Even after two and a half months on the job as SAC for the VAC national office, Jared kept finding new ways to trip himself up. Part of the problem was the 300 mutants captured in the Kelana raid. While Jared was used to interviewing survivors in this OCT work, at VAC mutants were pretty much always the enemy, no matter how victimized the individual was by the system. 

Even with a months’ delay between the raid and Jared’s transfer, they were still interviewing Kelana mutants, and Jared was finding it difficult to change mindsets to his new position. Also, his boss was an ass.

The interrogation room door opened with a little hiss of released air. The room’s sole occupant looked up and regarded the newcomers with trepidation.

Jared pushed the door open and stepped inside, Morgan close on his heels. Jared let Morgan step around him and released the door back to its frame, where it sealed with a hiss and the click of a magnetic lock engaging. Jared turned back to their… witness. Morgan had come to a stop about two feet from the interrogation table and was standing stock still with his arms crossed over his chest. Very imposing, not exactly a good way to put a witness at ease.

But then again, their witness was not just a witness. Jared had interviewed dozens if not hundreds of mutants over the years, most of them in the twelve years he’d worked in organized crime. In that context most of them _were_ witnesses, at least to Jared and his team. They were the victims of trafficking, the low-level employees. The powerless, but the ones who heard and saw and could share what had happened to them. When Jared was trying to take down a cartel or crime family the mutants were never his targets. He wanted their stories, not their confessions. He had never known for sure what happened to the mutants after he talked to them, to be honest, he’d done his best not to think about it.

Here, now, everything was different. The mutants _were_ Jared’s objective. VAC was tasked with regulating, controlling, overseeing, and to a certain extent, punishing, mutants. Jared was now part of VAC. And this witness was a suspect, and while PISA still legally recognized a presumption of innocence, it was hard to envision true innocence when one’s _guilt_ was written on their skin. 

This mutant knew it. Jared knew it. Morgan knew it. No matter how he wanted to be perceived he couldn’t stop reality from creeping in and coloring the conversation.

So, he did the only thing he could think of to break the ice. He crossed the room, faced the suspect, and sat his right hip on the corner of the desk.

The mutant jolted in his seat and strained backwards, trying to get away, but stopped by the built-in cuffs shackling his wrist s and ankles to the chair.

Morgan inhaled as if he was going to say something—admonish the witness, criticize Jared, maybe both—but Jared spoke first, effectively cutting Morgan off.

“I’m Agent Padalecki. This is Agent Morgan,” he said, glancing at Morgan, and raising his eyebrow in a way he hoped conveyed his request to just let him go with it. “This interview is being conducted under the Variant Intelligence Protocols Act, do you understand what that means?”

The suspect just stared at his hands unspeaking.

“My agent asked you a question!” Morgan said, his voice sharp with a bark of menace.

The suspect jumped, but looked up glancing at Morgan, and again trying to shy away, leaning back in the high-backed metal chair as far as he could go, before reluctantly turning his gaze to Jared. “It means you don’t have to read me my rights. I don’t get a lawyer. And I have to answer because if I don’t you’re just going to use some enhanced interrogation bullshit on me, until I tell you what I want.” The suspect thrust his chin forward at Jared in defiance. 

Morgan huffed and Jared cut him off again, unable to keep the ironic smile off his face. “Well, I don’t think Agent Morgan would put it quite like that, but you’re not wrong. You answer our questions. You don’t get any outside help. You tell us what you know, or this gets a lot less pleasant. Do you understand?”

The suspect just glared at him.

“Answer the question,” Morgan said, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward.

The suspect nodded.

“I’m afraid we need a verbal response,” Jared nudged.

“I—I understand,” the suspect answered.

Jared nodded, a small smile creeping over his face. “Why don’t we start with something simple. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Shiner, sir,” came the startled reply.

“We need your real name,” Morgan sneered.

“That’s the only name I know,” the suspect—Shiner—protested.

“What’s the name your parents gave you? A name that might show up on a birth certificate or arrest warrant,” Morgan pressed, re-crossing his arms, but glaring down at Shiner.

“I don’t know any other—my parents sold me to the Kelanas when I was 8, I think they called me Stanley, but I tried real hard to forget. Everyone calls me shiner, the client’s like it…” Shiner’s voice trailed off as he swallowed vigorously.

“You parent’s sold you?” Morgan pressed again.

“They wanted to have another kid. Sell to the Kelanas, get some cash, report your kid as a runaway, avoid a mutant record, have another kid,” Shiner explained, like it was obvious.

“PISA doesn’t require sterilization or permitting of a couple produces a mutant child,” Jared countered.

“Maybe not officially, they just watch everything you do looking for a sign of trouble, but Chicago, Chicago does,” Shiner countered.

“You’re from the Central Coalition?” Jared asked with a little bit of surprise.

“My parents lived in… Kansas, I think, but I’m not from anywhere. I’ve belonged to the Kelanas since I was an 8.”

“That’s a little young for a personal or domestic servicer,” Morgan countered, his voice taking on an edge like he didn’t really believe Shiner’s story.

Shiner rolled his eyes. “You don’t honestly think anyone cares about age, do you? Not if you’re talking about mutants.” He sniffed, still pressing himself back into the chair. “I manifested early, so my parents got rid of me early.”

For a few moments, Morgan regarded Shiner with contempt, while Shiner stat stoically, waiting for either the next question, or a blow to land.

“Now that we have something to call you and an idea about where you’re from, why don’t you tell us what you know about missing mutants,” Jared began, watching Shiner’s expressions closely for any hint of recognition.

“Missing mutants?” Shiner asked after a few seconds.

Morgan leaned forward again, putting his hand down on the table. He loomed over the meter-wide metal rectangle getting well into Shiner’s personal space. “You know, for a whore, you sure are skittish about getting close to people.”

“I—I don’t know where you’ve been. I don’t know you. The Kelanas screen everyone. I know my clients are clean, for all I know you want to get me sick, kill me…”

Morgan slammed his open palm on the table and cut Shiner off. “Let’s get one thing straight here. If anyone should be worried about contagions, it's us, worried about what some mutie slut like you is spreading around. But we don’t have the luxury of worrying about that because we have about 800 mutants on the Kelanas' books that are unaccounted for. There are no records of their transfer, dumping, execution, or sale. Records we do have say several of them were in your… brothel,” Morgan sniffed as if saying the word cost him. “So tell us what you know, and maybe I don’t stomp you out right now like the disgusting bug that you are.”

Unsurprisingly, at Morgan’s threat, Shiner just cringed back further and froze, shaking. 

Jared sighed. He knew going into this that Morgan had a reputation for being bullheaded and an asshole, maybe even unnecessarily rough when it came to mutants (although plenty of people thought it was impossible to be too rough with a mutant). But he was now getting the sense that Morgan enjoyed baiting and fucking with mutants so much, that he played ignorant. That plus Morgan’s undoubtedly questionable agenda persuaded Jared to try something a little different.

Jared could tell by the distinctive interrupted saw tooth pattern around Shiner’s wrists and peeking above his collar he was a telepath, and a fairly powerful one at that. 

“You were being held at the fifth avenue tower, right?” Jared asked.

“That’s where I was housed,” Shiner answered.

“Since the raid, you’ve been held near other mutants, you see who we have in custody, are there people you were… housed with, who are not here?” Jared asked.

“Yes,” Shiner answered, hesitant.

“Were they shipped somewhere else?” Morgan demanded.

“No.”

“Are you sure? Were they assigned to a different location or sold?” Morgan pressed.

“I—I don’t think so, no.”

“You don’t think so, or no? Which is it?” Morgan asked leaning forward again.

Shiner just blinked and seemed to shut down again.

Jared shifted his hip on the table and got more comfortable. _I know you’re a telepath,_ he thought very clearly and glanced at Shiner out of the corner of his eye. _I also know you’re reading us because it’s what you do. It’s how you keep clients happy, and it’s a survival mechanism. ___

__Shiner lurched back in his chair again and did a double take, looking at Jared again._ _

__Morgan, not aware of what Jared was trying took this as an act of defiance and slammed his hand on the table again. “Answer the question!”_ _

__“I don’t know,” Shiner murmured, glancing at Jared warily._ _

__“Look, I know a thing or two about how the Kelanas operate. See, I used to work in organized crime, and I was part of the raid where you were captured. I know you might not know everything your masters were planning, but I also know you probably would have seen other mutants, talked maybe. Did anyone who is missing say they were being moved? Give you any hint they weren’t going to be around?” Jared asked aloud. As he spoke, he tried to make his thoughts as clear as possible. _Whatever you’re thinking about Agent Morgan, it’s probably right. He does want to find your friends and experiment on them. I just want to find out what happened to them, make sure they’re not in an even worse situation than the one you left.__ _

__Shiner did another double take, glancing quickly between Jared and Morgan, his eyes blinking rapidly. He fixed his gaze on Jared and frowned, his expression still suspicious. “No, no one I talked to mentioned being moved, sold, traveling.”_ _

__“What—” Morgan started, but Jared held up a hand and he quieted._ _

__“Is that something you would have talked about? Jared asked. _He hoped his thoughts were reassuring, but judging by Shiner’s expression, he hadn’t exactly convinced Shiner his motives were pure.__ _

___Apparently frustrated by the lag in Shiner’s response, Morgan spoke up again. “Give Agent Padalecki an answer.”_ _ _

___Shiner blinked, swallowed, and let out a breath. “Yeah, that was something they would have told me. Our group, they didn’t move us much. Plenty of clientele right here. We got sent out on trips sometimes, occasionally got assigned as personal companions, but we always talked about that. I know it might not seem that way to people like you, but we cared about each other. Looked out for each other. If someone was going away, they always said goodbye, asked someone to look in on their plants until they got back. Are you saying—there are ten of my friends, people I have lived next to, worked with for years, are you saying you don’t know where they are?”_ _ _

___“No one was being transferred?” Morgan asked._ _ _

___“No.”_ _ _

___“You don’t think anyone was sold, maybe your owners decided to dump some junk assets?” Morgan taunted._ _ _

___Shiner’s fists clenched. “You’re talking about my friends. We weren’t junk assets and we weren’t some sad sack idiots trying trading their bodies for passage to the promised land. We made money for the Kelanas, kept clients happy, we weren’t people they’d just throw away.”_ _ _

___“When was the last time you saw your missing friends?” Jared asked before Morgan could piss of Shiner even more. _Please be honest with me, even if it scares you.__ _ _

___“That Monday night?” Shiner answered, uncertainty plain in his tone._ _ _

___“The night before the raid?” Jared clarified._ _ _

___“Yeah.”_ _ _

___“What time?” Morgan interjected._ _ _

___“I—I don’t know, eleven maybe? Some of us talked after curfew. I saw Jamie come back from a client appointment at midnight, and I haven’t seen her since,” Shiner answered._ _ _

___“Was there anything unusual, suspicious, any abnormal activity that might have suggested something was going on that you didn’t know about, maybe explained why a bunch of your fellow mutants went missing?” Jared asked._ _ _

___“No,” Shiner asked, expression lost, “I mean not until you guys busted down our doors and hit us with a drop net at 7 the next morning.” He blinked and looked back and forth from Jared to Morgan again. “You mean you don’t know where they are?” his voice got small, quiet, high pitched with his disbelief._ _ _

____Thank you._ Jared thought. “I think that’s all for now,” he said, pushing back from the table._ _ _

___Morgan looked like he wanted to protest, but after Jared shot him another look, he recanted and stalked silently back over to the door._ _ _

___They waited for the bioscanner to read their biometrics and the magnetic locks to release. Jared pulled the door in, and it opened with another hiss. He followed Morgan out into the hall in silence._ _ _

___When the door had locked behind them, Morgan whirled on Jared, “Padalecki, I don’t know what the hell—”_ _ _

___Jared glanced meaningfully at one of the surveillance notes in the ceiling, looked directly at Morgan, and mouthed, “Not here.” He stepped back from Morgan and set of down the hall the opposite of the way they’d come, walking past several more biometrically locked interrogation rooms, past one of the interrogation suites, and the turn off that led back towards the offices down to the farthest reach of the hall where he pulled out his ID and waited through the five-part biometric lock—retinal scan, breath-based DNA scan, palmprint, blood test, microtransmitter verification. The bolts on the heavy, reinforced-steel door, one that would not be out of place on a bank vault, sprung back, and the door slid open, allowing him to pass. As soon as he crossed the laser-monitored doorjamb the door slammed back into place and the bolts reengaged. He stopped in the interior vestibule and pressed the indicator to signal someone would be joining him. The inner door would not open until someone else went through the biolock and entered their own code._ _ _

___He waited about 25 seconds while Morgan repeated the process and joined him inside. Morgan glared at him, but still entered his code on the indicator keypad and confirmed they were ready for the inner door to open. The light overhead flicked from amber to green, and the inner door slid back allowing them inside. When they had both crossed the second threshold, the door slid back into place. The lights in the interior room switched on, while the lights in the vestibule flicked to red._ _ _

___Morgan was still glaring at him, but the furrow in his brow suggested more concern and confusion than anger._ _ _

___“Why did you hire me?” Jared asked, his voice quiet and even._ _ _

___Morgan blinked, surprised by the apparent non sequitur, and crossed to the table that occupied the center of the room, taking a seat in one of the accompanying rolling chairs with a resigned sigh. “I hired you because of your demonstrated record of being the best field investigator and long-term strategist in the Bureau.” He looked up at Jared, who was still standing just inside the door. “And because of your knowledge of both mutants and organized crime makes your skills invaluable to the VAC.” Morgan crossed his right foot over his left knee, foot twitching with impatience. “Now do you want to explain why you acted like that in interrogation, and why we’re both going to have to justify a SCIF visit?”_ _ _

___Access to the Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility was heavily regulated and monitored, precisely because everything that went on inside it was _not_ monitored. Only select SACs, assistant deputies and higher could even qualify for clearance, and every visit had to be documented and justified for each individual. Suspicious use of a SCIF could lead to an internal investigation, political interference, or even—in extreme cases—disappearance. Coming here was a risk. Then again, everything about joining the VAC was a risk. Jared knew Morgan had an agenda that served Morgan and pretty much no one else. The second Jared had accepted the position with the VAC he had placed his life under a microscope. It was an unparalleled opportunity. It was an exercise in insanity. Joining the VAC was like walking a tightrope with hidden mines over a bottomless chasm and the promise of the keys to the universe on the other side. Jared was just hoping he didn’t blow up when he got to the center. Still, he’d already made his choice, and he’d made _this_ choice by leading Morgan to the SCIF. _ _ _

___Resolved, Jared walked to the table and pulled out the rolling chair across from Morgan, mirroring his position. “You’re right, I know organized crime, and I know mutants. And I know the Kelanas in particular. Shiner is telling the truth,” Jared began._ _ _

___“What, one wide-eyed whore bats his eyes at you, and suddenly you’re a truthsayer?” Morgan scoffed._ _ _

___Jared shook his head, an abrupt jog of his chin, effectively shutting Morgan up while conveying the seriousness of the situation. “Shiner is a telepath and a high level one at that,” he looked up a Morgan, seeing confusion, he added, “markings visible at the neck and wrists, saw-tooth pattern?”_ _ _

___Morgan nodded. He knew the markings, apparently he hadn’t been paying attention._ _ _

___“The Kelanas use telepaths as their premiere companions. They invest a lot of time and money in them, and they make sure they’re pretty well taken care of. You notice, no scars, no marks from long-term restraints?” Jared waited for Morgan to acknowledge him and then continued, choosing his words carefully. “Sure, he’s a little beat up now, but that’s all new, injuries from the raid or from other mutants in lockup._ _ _

___“Mutants like Shiner are not garden-variety whores. They’re not high-class call girls and boys either. They’re courtesans. Spies. They sleep with presidents and chancellors and kings, and sometimes with the occasional war lord or CEO thrown in, if the warlords and CEOs demonstrate themselves to be well behaved. The mutants use their telepathy to anticipate the needs of their clients and leave them… fulfilled. The clients know they’re potentially putting their secrets at risk by spending time with a telepath, but they discount the risk, because the reward is a lover of unparalleled performance and skill and the opportunity to do something a little forbidden. Of course, the mutants find out a lot more than just their clients’ favorite sexual positions, and they report what they learn back to their masters. Information gathered by mutants like Shiner forms the backbone of the Kelanas intelligence trade.”_ _ _

___“So, what, you think that means the mutant whore won’t lie?” Morgan challenged._ _ _

___“It means what Shiner told us matches what I know to be true about the Kelanas. Shiner says at least 10 of the missing are courtesans like him. Those are slaves the Kelanas would never dump and would not trade because their training and knowledge is too valuable. Courtesans sometimes go out on long-term loan to a particular client, but the Kelanas monitor the transfer, and it’s a lease, not a sale. Like Shiner said, the mutant being loaned out would let their neighbors know where they were going and make arrangements._ _ _

___“The story about the girl coming back from a seeing a client at midnight? There’s a log entry that matches. No name, but the timing and details corroborate his story. There are valuable telepaths missing, the Kelanas weren’t planning to trade or transfer them, because the Kelanas didn’t do any of the things they do when they’re making that type of transfer. The telepaths were there seven hours before the raid and then gone by morning. What does that tell you?” Jared asked throwing the ball back in Morgan’s court._ _ _

___“Maybe the Kelanas got wind of the raid and moved their most valuable assets out,” Morgan suggested._ _ _

___“I’m not saying my old team was perfect, but if the Kelanas got wind of the raid, then why were we able to pick up all three siblings and all their lieutenants?” Jared asked._ _ _

___“Maybe someone else inside the organization trying to preserve some of the intelligence?” Morgan suggested._ _ _

___“I’d be there with you, but we rounded up every single person in the top three levels of the organization and a ton of the people below them. Even assuming we missed someone, how come they cleaned out some of the intelligence assets, but not others? Why are there about ten high level telepaths missing, but about 800 mutants unaccounted for? It doesn’t add up,” Jared pointed out._ _ _

___“Then what, exactly, are you suggesting,” Morgan asked. “A mutant uprising happened overnight and over 2000 assets escaped, wiped themselves from the records and left no trace?” He shook his head. “Even if they worked together, they’d need to rewrite reality to pull it off, and there’s no indication of the Kelanas ever having a mutant like that if any were still alive, never mind that powerful.”_ _ _

___Jared shifted in his seat. “So, if the Kelanas didn’t do it, and the mutants didn’t do it? Who stands to gain? Who else was involved that could have pulled it off?”_ _ _

___Morgan frowned. “I hope you realize your old team isn’t above reproach.”_ _ _

___“And neither is our current team. But they’re not the only ones. This isn’t the first time mutants have turned up missing after a raid. This is the most, at least that we know of, but it’s happened before. Every single one of those raids was a multi-party op. Organized crime, VAC, military, sometimes with international cooperation, intelligence agencies… every one of those organizations have an interest in mutants, everyone of them stood to gain if they could get unmonitored, off book access to mutants. Have anyone who’s jealous of your lab? Because they’d be top of my list,” Jared concluded._ _ _

___“Do you realize what you’re saying?” Morgan asked, his voice tight._ _ _

___“Of course, that’s why I’m saying it _in here_ ,” Jared said, sweeping his arms wide, indicating the SCIF. It’s possible it could be a contractor or maybe something or someone else entirely, but the repeated disappearances, the lack of a trail, it all points to it being someone or some organization within either our government or an allied government.”_ _ _

___“What do you propose?”_ _ _

___“We look for commonalities, individuals or groups who had access to all or most of the ops where mutants disappeared. We take that list, and we look for incentives, debts, pressures, unexplained income. We clear the people we need first, maybe before we even complete the preliminary cross-referencing. If we’re unlucky—or lucky, depending on how you look at it—that reveals the perp or conspirators right away.” Jared shrugged, “Or we find out the people closest to us are as loyal as we hope they are and we turn a broader team loose on the list.”_ _ _

___“You know you’re going to be on that list,” Morgan pointed out._ _ _

___“As are you,” Jared agreed, “Also, if you do have any specially trained telepaths waiting in the wings, now might be a good to put them to use.”_ _ _

___Morgan shot him an ironic smile, and ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it. It was a frustrated tic Jared had seen him do infrequently. “Ordinary polygraphs and chemically enhanced testing will work fine. We’ll both head down to chem ops as soon as we’re out of here.” He shook his head. “Well, fuck. I was hoping maybe you were overreacting, and I was going to have to write you up for misusing a SCIF, but this cluster is exactly the reason these exist.” Morgan glanced towards the door. “Are we ready to head out there?”_ _ _

___“Yes,” Jared agreed, “although I feel like I should apologize for dropping this in your lap.”_ _ _

___“Nah,” Morgan stood and started towards the door. “As much as this is going to suck for a lot of people, us included, if you’re right, you’re doing me a huge service.” He glanced back over his shoulder, at Jared, who was now standing by the table, “Even if you’re wrong, there’s enough here, that we have to investigate. And something tells me, you’re not wrong. We have a mole inside the government. Best case scenario, it’s off-books experimentation. Worst case, they’re helping mutants escape.” Morgan paused and used his ID to start the scanning out process._ _ _

___While Jared waited through the bioscan process, he couldn’t quite suppress the shiver that coursed through him._ _ _


	4. Chapter 4

**_Interlude, October 2070, Seattle_ **

"It happened again. I was out on the street, about to enter a shop to get groceries, when my markings reappeared on my hand," Sterling said, glaring at the figure who, as usual, was clinging to the shadows.

"I'm sorry," the figure said.

“Don’t be sorry, I understand why. Its taxing you. There are ten times as many of us as you expected. But we need a better solution,” Sterling responded.

“Morgan’s investigation…” the voice trailed off. “He has every resource he can spare and then some focused on the disappearance. Every time I come here, we all risk discovery.” 

“What about Archangel,” Briana, asked stepping forward. She and Sterling had come forward as the voices of their ungainly group, with Yadira their enforcer, troubleshooter, and all-around handyperson. 

“I know you still believe in him,” the figure answered.

“He’s not a mythological character. I’ve _met_ him,” Briana said.

“But you can’t tell me who he is?” The voice asked.

“I don’t trust you enough for that, and no, I physically cannot tell you, because of the protections around his identity.” Briana answered.

“The trusthsayer,” the figure mused aloud. 

“Try harder. Convince him this isn’t a trap. We’ve had four different near misses with sightings and collisions, in the past day, and I _did_ walk into someone at the 7–11 yesterday,” Yadira demanded. “I didn’t think I was invisible, but apparently I was.”

“I’m sorry,” the figure said again.

“Do better,” Yadira answered.

“Stop playing games with him and at least tell him you need help,” said Briana.

~~~

**  
_Eastern Alberta, Canada, 2070_   
**

“Now here’s the part where I play therapist, and you resist my efforts, and I go and ask Felicia what’s going on,” Misha said, smiling on Jensen’s computer screen.

Jensen groaned and slouched in his seat. “Don’t ask Felicia,” he whined. It actually came out as a whine, he was mortified.

“Um, okay, why?” Misha asked, skeptical.

“Because she’s terrified about me, for me, and she’s just as irrational about anything touching on Haven as I am, just in different ways,” Jensen explained.

At that point, Misha gave him the “raised eyebrow of doom,” as Felicia called it, and Jensen buckled in for the long haul. He talked about the dreams, their acceleration over the past few weeks, the new sense of urgency and desperation he felt—

The need to investigate.

“Felicia’s convinced I’m just looking for flashy way to commit suicide or otherwise toss myself into a VAC trap. She thinks I’m still wracked with guilt, and I’m giftwrapping myself so they can X out another square on their stupid org chart.”

“Are you suddenly not wracked with guilt?” Misha asked, skeptical.

Jensen shook his head. “Of course not. But I still need to see this through—if there’s a mutant in PISA—a mutant who is free enough to have something like an emergence, maybe an escaped mutant—I have to go for them. I have to at least try. I can’t live with myself if I leave someone there at PISA’s mercy.”

“But Felicia is saying this isn’t genuine, it’s a PISA trap?" Misha asked.

“No, not exactly,” Jensen said. “The call for help is real, but it’s also not the whole truth. The person calling me is not actually emerging at this time, but it also is sort of real, from a certain point of view or something. And the whole thing has something to do with VAC, but it isn’t intentionally a trap. We’ve figured that much out, but we ran out of questions I could think of to ask, so we’re kind of stuck. But the more I think about it, the more I know I have to go.”

“Well, you’ll need a plan,” Misha hedged.

“I’ll need your help, and maybe Felicia’s, if you can convince her to help me,” Jensen agreed.

~~~

**  
_November 2070, Approaching Northeastern PISA/Canada Border_   
**

Jensen's eyes blinked open slowly as the slowly rocking light flickered in his eyes. He looked around then froze, heart seizing in his chest for the split second he didn't recognize his surroundings. Then memory caught up with him and he let out a long breath and stretched as much as he could in the cramped seat, rolling his neck to get out the cramps from sleeping sitting up.

A train. He was on a train to the PISA border crossing closest to Seattle. The light wasn't rocking, the train car was, and the slanting, late afternoon sun was moving in and out of his eyes with each oscillation. 

After another breath to steady himself, Jensen let his eyes track around the car. He was crammed in one of the end seats that faced forwards while most of the other seats on this end of the car faced backwards, away from the direction of travel. Because of the persona he was inhabiting, he'd paid for a seat in business class—which meant the seats were more spread out, singles on one side of the wider aisle and doubles on the other, reserved for couples and family groups traveling together. The plexiglass barriers that stretched from the top of each seatback to the roof of the car above were pristine and scratchless, unlike the battered, graffiti-strewn counterparts in coach that sometimes bordered on opaque. And on the family side of the car, the barriers were retractable so families could lower the barriers between them if their tickets contained the right group code. 

Jensen was traveling alone and on the single seat side of the car, his luggage—a large-ish messenger bag—currently clutched on his lap rather than in his compartment's overhead bin. He glanced out through the (also pristine) retractable wall that separated passengers from the aisle and noticed the car was mostly empty. That and the quartet of grey and black digicam-clad armed officers who stepped into the far end of the car at that moment, confirmed the train was fast-approaching the border.

Funny how even though he hadn't been on this train or any other in over ten years, but the internal programming was still there. It wasn't the light in his eyes that had awakened him, but his sense of place. 

Back when the movement was still active, back when mutants congregated and turned to each other for support and worked together for freedom, he had made this trip at least once per month. Not always as himself and certainly not always under the same name or in business class, but he'd made cross-border runs on a fairly regular basis. It was amazing how easy it was to get into PISA, even as a mutant. Because PISA was much more interested in trying to catch mutants trying to escape, they didn't pay much attention to who was coming into the country. After all, no one knew who or where Archangel was and no one knew Archangel was making runs back and forth across the border. Back then Jensen had been almost complacent, calm on this trip. There was always the lingering thrill of fear that woke him up or snapped his attention back to the here and now whenever he got close to the border, but he was mostly relaxed. 

Now, well, now Jensen shouldn't be calm enough to sleep and shouldn't let his guard down, or let his concentration lapse, and he shouldn't be so relaxed and lackadaisical. But he was. Whether that was old habit, sense memory, or something else, he had just slept for six hours. And now they were approaching the crossing. 

Well, at least he didn't look like a nervous mutant with something to hide. No one would ever believe the VAC's most wanted would sleep like a baby in public rolling up to the border.

Now that he was awake, Jensen watched the team of four make their way through the car, stopping at each plexiglass compartment to request IID. 

A spike of fear struck Jensen deep in his gut, little frissons of fight or flight energy tingling up his spine, down his extremities. Once upon a time, the anticipation of potential conflict had excited him. 

Now it just filled him with dread. 

It would be so easy to reach out with his telekinesis, grab the officers, toss them against the wall. It would be easier still to reach out with his mind and convince them not to see him, just pass on by. His instincts said to act, but long, hard-earned experience told him that way lay exposure.

Any action he took would out him. Every officer's equipment was monitored, cross-checked for any sign of influence or encounter with mutant abilities. If this was going to work, Jensen had to be calm, embody the role. 

So, he took a deep breath and centered himself, working his way through one of the breathing exercises Misha had taught him.

When the four officers approached, he was more steady, able to keep his mind inside the confines of his own head despite the pressing desire to take a peek inside their thoughts. 

The first officer knocked on the plexiglass barrier, while the second said, “Identification,” tone bland and bored. The other two officers stood back, hands resting on the grips of their holstered weapons. 

Jensen didn't need telepathy to tell they were trying to look poised for action, but were anything but. He looked at the officer who had spoken and the officer who had knocked, checking their badges. From what he knew of current PISA practices, they had the right credentials, right uniforms. He glanced out the window. The train was still well approaching the Cascades, not even into the pass yet, and the border wasn't for almost 50 kilometers on the west side of the mountains. Huh. Not wanting to create an unnecessary confrontation, he reached into his jacket and pulled out his passport, ticket, and visa, and leaned over to drop them into the plexiglass drawer and push the handle so it opened on the far side. 

This was a moment of vulnerability. They had his identity in their hands, almost every shred of legitimacy he had pieced together for this mission, while he was trapped in a plexiglass cage next to a ballistic-grade reinforced window on the side of the train overlooking a ravine high in the snow-covered cascades. If they made a move on him, Jensen could get out, but not without endangering everyone's lives and creating a mess that would draw VAC's attention and international ire and condemnation. So, to cover for his twitchiness, he said, “I didn't know you started customs so far on this side of the border.”

The agent who had knocked was scanning his documents both visually and with his phone, but the officer who had spoken answered, “It's one of the services for those in business class. We want to make your transition to PISA as smooth as possible.”

“Cool,” Jensen said, adding a forced smile. “It's been a long time since I traveled for business. I might have come back sooner if I'd realized how nice it was.”

“And what is your business in the Pacific and Interior States?” the second officer asked. 

“I'm a lawyer, dually licensed in Canada and PISA, and I have a client with an urgent matter in the States,” he paused and made eye contact with both officer knocks-a-lot and the officer who talked. “It's confidential, you know.” 

“And your clients haven't taken you across the border in some time?” The second officer asked. “Can we see proof of licensure.”

“Of course,” Jensen said, reaching into his jacket again and pulling out the two newly printed bar cards. “Recently, my clients' interests have kept me busy in Alberta, primarily.”

The first officer slid the drawer back to Jensen's side so he could pass the bar cards over, but held onto his papers. Jensen dropped the bar cards in without hesitation, but as he did so, shifted his left foot so it was wrapped around the seat's supporting brace, just in case. 

“Can you lean forward for the retinal scan please,” officer two said, still sounding bored, while the first officer inspected the bar cards. 

“Of course,” Jensen said, leaning forward towards the protected rectangle of crystal clear plexiglass that was designed to let the retinal scanner work through it. This was the moment of truth. Were his records still clear? In the intervening decade had the VAC put the pieces together? Had anyone gotten a clue that Jensen Ackles was a mutant? 

The first officer held his scanner up in front of the window and scanned Jensen's right eye. When the phone chirped, Jensen leaned back. 

“You can take your bar cards back now,” officer two said as officer one dropped the two cards into the drawer and slid it back towards Jensen. 

“Thank you,” he said as he reached out with his right hand to take the cards back. As he did so, his sleeve slid back, revealing a strip of pale skin that didn't quite match the skin on Jensen's face or hands, and the faint line of grafting scars. 

All four officers' behavior shifted, an immediate lurch from nonchalance to alertness. 

Jensen wanted to kick himself, but he acted like he didn't notice, just slid the bar cards back inside his jacket and waited.

“That's a nasty scar you've got there,” the second officer said. 

“What? Oh, that. Car accident, almost 15 years ago now, it's been there so long I forget about it sometimes,” Jensen babbled. He chanced a glance down at his hands as he folded them in his lap. At least the pigment match was holding, there were not hints of telltale markings peeking through. 

Still, the officers didn't seem satisfied. “Could you turn your right ear towards the scanner window please?” the second officer demanded. 

“Of course,” Jensen said, moving to comply. 

“Just a moment,” the officer said again, as Jensen watched the first officer move his phone again. 

And now Jensen was extremely grateful he'd decided to forego any visible hearing aid, because the officers obviously knew enough about him—well about archangel—to suspect Jensen might be him after just seeing a scar on his right wrist. Sensing a trap, Jensen opened up his passive telepathy a hair to harvest the impressions of what the officers were saying.

 _Let me know if you can hear this…_ the second officer said, quietly. Not so quietly it was inaudible but just loudly enough half-whispering it into someone's ear should be audible. 

“I'm sorry, hear what?” Jensen asked, just before he sensed the shutter snap on officer one's camera. 

“You can return to your seat,” officer two said. 

Jensen sat back and watched the first two officers compare notes, showing the results of whatever photo or scan they'd completed and the results of Jensen's identity scan. Here was where he found out if the supposedly undetectable surgery Misha had convinced him to undergo was as undetectable as advertised, well that and how sensitive PISA's telepathy sensors were. 

“Is there a problem, officers,” Jensen said after a few moments had passed. 

The second officer looked up, shared a glance with the first officer and turned back to Jensen. The two silent officers took a step back. “No, sir. Everything seems to be in order. If you'd just push the drawer out…”

Jensen was already moving to comply.

“We'll get your documents back to you and see you on your way,” the second officer said as the first placed Jensen's documents back in the drawer along with an iridescent, holographically printed token. “You are all cleared through customs aside from the baggage check. “Just take the token to the express lane when you get off the train in Seattle, and they will have you on your way in a minute or two. Hope you have a productive stay.” 

Jensen pulled the documents from the drawer, paying extra attention to the token. “Thank you, officers.” 

Officer two nodded at Jensen before turning and heading through the door at the rear of the car.

Jensen let out a slow breath and sank back into his seat, taking in the scenic beauty as the train passed through the pass and began its descent down through the cascades towards the Canadian-PISA border. 

Forty minutes later, the train pulled into the station in downtown Seattle, and Jensen disembarked with his bag slung across his body. He looked up, unfamiliar with how the station had changed in the decade plus since he'd been there. There were more armed guards—city police mixed in with a few FBI agents by the look of their uniforms. There was a solid ballistic glass and razor wire topped barrier between the far edge of the platform and the path into the station proper. Vivid OLED signs declared the purpose of each gateway through the barrier in six or seven languages, and at most of the gates, lines were forming. More guards, some even more heavily armed staffed long tables with conveyer belts and baggage scanners on the far side of the barrier, while most of the gates themselves were actually backscatter booths. 

Fun. There were at least a half dozen ways Jensen could trip himself up and give his mutant nature away just passing through. Still, the customs officers on the train had said to look for an express line… There! At the far end was an open gate without a backscatter booth and no line. The sign overhead very clearly denoted it as express and prominently displayed a picture of Jensen's token. Huh. 

Jensen walked over to the gate, careful not to look like he was hurrying, and dug the token out of his pocket. He showed the token to the gate guard, prepared to dig out the rest of his papers, but the guard just waved him through. On the other side, a single guard wearing white gloves nodded at the token.

“May I please check your bag?” the gate agent asked. 

Jensen obliged, passing the bag across, once again holding his breath and hoping Misha and Felecia's intel on concealment tech was up to date. 

But the officer didn't run the back through an x-ray. Instead, he unclipped and flipped back the fold-over top, unzipped the main compartment, poked around inside for a few seconds, closed the bag back up and passed it back to Jensen. “Enjoy your stay.”


	5. Chapter 5

**_Extended Stay Residence, NW Human Sector, Seattle, PISA, November 2070_ **

The mini-apartment was comfortable, if alien. But Jensen had at least readjusted to being around people. More or less.

After his arrival, Jensen had spent the first two days doing recon, looking for obvious signs of newly emerging mutants. He tuned his phone into the police scanner’s frequency looking for mutant disturbance calls, nothing.

He searched around the outskirts of the mutant slum, the fenced-in “free living” zone for mutants not currently remanded to an institution, prison, or in VAC custody. Once he’d made the circuit, he risked reaching out with his telepathy letting it play over the entire neighborhood. Again, _nothing_. Well nothing beyond the overwhelming sense of hopelessness and despair that left him dry heaving and wanting to die for his own failures in the past decade.

Jensen spent a day meditating in his apartment, reaching out with his telepathy as much as he dared, looking for any mind that felt familiar, that reached back. But in the waking hours, there was no one, not even an echo of the mind that had been screaming for him.

He checked the Autoclean motels in the human neighborhoods and the illegal flop houses and hostels, but again, there was no one there.

Jensen would think he had been duped, lured out of hiding by a phantom, except that ever night the dreams came back, and with them an ever-more-insistent, ever-more desperate mutant calling out for help.

The dreams became clearer. Images of friends he lost at Haven, happiness, feeling settled yet somehow warry, then fire, pain, pressure. He woke from a dead sleep with his ears ringing, bleeding, his right arm shattered and burned, skin hanging off his forearm in bloody ribbons, more blood dripping into his right eye, his cheek swollen, orbital bone fractured, pain, disorientation, and all around him explosions and fire. He remembered pulling something, holding on, but he could not figure out what, because the right side of his body was so fucked up it wouldn’t respond to his commands and his left arm wouldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t see properly. He stumbled, lost, through the hallways, then out of what should have bene a doorway into one of the streets, but was really from rubble into more rubble. He should have been able to find his way, but he couldn’t. Even in the dream, everything stuttered and flickered like it did in his waking memories memory—as if he was watching a stop-motion animation of someone else’s life, not living through it. 

Sometime later, but how long he never knew, Jim was there, holding him by the shoulders and keeping him from falling down. Jensen wasn’t sure then (or now) why he was falling down, or why Jim was gripping him so tightly, but he did remember he couldn’t feel his legs or anything on his right side. In the dream, he could see Jim’s mouth moving, but he heard no sound. Never was there sound, until there was another terrible blast as something _hit_ the compound, punched through the southeast wall and reduced the buildings around it to splinters. That was loud, so loud, and Jensen could feel what it was doing to the buildings, to the people, but he couldn’t understand why, and he couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t make the world hold together. And then, everything, kind of… _stopped_ … The fireball stopped expanding, the concussive wave didn’t move, then it retreated falling back on itself. There was a terribly loud _pop_ and all the air seemed to rush out of the room—only he wasn’t in a room, he was outside—and then there was nothing again. Time stuttered. He opened his eyes again. (When did he close them?) And Jim was holding him up, still talking. Jensen still couldn’t hear, but now he could make out the words—he wasn’t speech reading, he was hearing them in his mind.

Jim had told him to run. Had told him he had to get out—that they couldn’t let the humans win, couldn’t let VAC destroy them, and the only way that was going to happen was if Jensen got out. Jensen couldn’t stay and die. 

He protested. He knew he had tried to talk, but he couldn’t make his mouth form words, so he projected his thoughts at Jim. Jim was a telepath too, a telepath with mid-range electrokinesis, and unusual combination, but one that made him the best sentry, best guardian. The best mentor. A great leader. Jim was okay. He wasn’t injured. Jensen was hurt. And with Felicia gone, Jensen was in charge of security. If they were under attack, it was Jensen’s failure. 

But Jim had said “no,” it was only because of Jensen that any of them were alive. 

Jensen didn’t understand what he meant. He remembered finding his words and telling Jim to get out, leave, save himself. There were more explosions he couldn’t hear, could only feel from the changes in heat and pressure, and the constant screams in his mind. He was pleading with Jim asking him to leave. Jim had looked him in the eye, Jensen had the distinct sensation of that even though he knew he was seeing double and couldn’t focus, and then Jim told him he had to live to give them—mutants—a future and a chance to figure out how VAC had found them. Jensen needed to live to fight for justice for every mutant life lost.

Then Jensen felt Jim looking into his mind, reaching out with his telepathy, and giving Jensen a nudge. It was the kind of thing telepaths didn’t do—not unless they were truly in the “rogue” category, the type of people who went around fucking with other people’s heads, stealing secrets and violently covering their tracks, taking information and leaving devastation in their wake. Even then, it should have been something Jensen could have blocked easily. But his concentration was split—why was it split? He was holding everything in, and barely holding on. His mind was mostly not there, and he didn’t understand, and he was just trying to compensate for all he couldn’t see and hear and feel, and Jim had _pushed_ him. A suggestion of sleep or unconsciousness or just letting go. Whatever it was, Jensen’s mind had blanked. He’d lost consciousness. And then he’d woken up six months later in a human hospital in Regina with no memory of how he’d gotten from Alberta to Saskatchewan or how he’d gotten out of Haven or what had happened next. Felicia had been there when he opened his eyes and she was so, so sad. He hadn’t even had to ask her what had happened, because it was written all over her face and stamped in boldface across the surface of her mind. 

Today, Jensen knew he was dreaming. And the details were different, he never dreamed the same dream twice, and so, he never knew what really had happened at Haven, or what was his mind making up, trying to fill in blanks. But today, he knew he was dreaming. He even thought it was funny he was aware of that because he usually didn’t realize he was in the dream while he was still in it, and he usually awoke from the dream long before he got to this point.

The next thing he knew he was lying on his back on the bed in his rental micro-apartment in Seattle, blinking up at the old fashioned ceiling fan spinning above him, feeling the emerging mutant calling out to him again.

And the mutant was calling out. Screaming for help, perhaps louder than they had ever called out before. Jensen was sure of that now. With the physical distance removed, the mutant was much _louder_. And there they were. Once again, the mutant felt like an emergence, only not. The mind was older, there was a part of it that was emulating the scared teenager, perhaps drawing from experience, but echoed in parallel was the distinct feeling this was not a teenager, and while the desperation was real, it was not _that_ desperation of a newly emerged mutant trying to make sense of the world, trying not to get caught. No this was someone closer to Jensen’s age, who felt both like a very powerful mutant and nothing like a mutant at all. The request was deliberate and calculated, consciously reaching out for Archangel, Starkiller, names Jensen hadn’t heard in a decade. Asking for help, for himself and for others, a lot of others. It didn’t make sense.

Where were there a lot of mutants in Seattle that needed help? How would that be possible with VAC headquarters right there, overseeing everything. He’d been to the slum and no one there had even wanted to _think_ about getting out. They were all too afraid of what VAC would do to them, to their families if they tried to escape and failed.

Jensen reached back with his mind in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to in years, following the thread the mutant’s thoughts and tracing the location back in space until he was confident he could match it to a general location on the map. Jensen followed the strange emergence/not-emergence for hours until he was confident he had the right neighborhood, but every time he tried to get closer it was like his thoughts just hit a wall and slid off. Whomever was reaching out was also pushing him away, in a way he had never sensed before. He followed it until the rosy fingers of dawn were breaking over the Cascades. And then, just as abruptly as the call had started, it stopped. There was no more emergence, no more mutant. Not even the traces of the mutant’s telepathic presents he had been following. 

Try as he might, Jensen’s mind was met with resolute blankness and normalcy as if the universe was saying out loud “nothing to see here, move along.” 

Rattled, Jensen finally drifted back to sleep around 0730, once he was confident he really could not find the location again.

~~~

**  
_November 2070—FBI Agent Housing, Seattle, PISA_  
**

Across town, Jared woke with his heart hammering in his chest. Had he been dreaming about Archangel? Had it felt different? Was Archangel closer?

The more he worked for VAC, the more he hated it. It had been his goal for years, but somehow he always thought he’d use it as a way to gather intel, find out about more mutants in harms way, maybe help them out, hide them until they were off VAC’s radar. Little things. One or two people here or there who would otherwise be crushed under VAC’s thumb, tiny changes, nothing noticeable.

Then again, he never thought he’d be hired to essentially hunt himself or have 2973 mutants hiding in a derelict, half-finished skyscraper, or have a fucking high-level electrokinetic on his team who twice, so far, since he had started in August, had accidentally missed a spot on her left wrist when she was lasering off her markings. 

Twice.

He’d been under so much strain he’d looked down earlier and thought he saw an infinity symbol on his own hand. He couldn’t be sure though, and that uncertainty was enough to keep him up at night.

~~~

**  
_VAC Headquarters, Seattle, November 2070_  
**

Jensen had spent almost every moment preparing since he made up his mind to follow the call of the possibly emerging mutant. What would be a plausible cover story that would get him an audience with the VAC to get intel on what might be going on to figure out who was contacting him and why. Of course, Felicia was completely against it, what with Jensen planning to literally walk through the front door of VAC’s headquarters in the executive capital of PISA, the one where all the most invasive law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Variant Affairs Commission, had their central offices. These people were hunting them. Wanted every single mutant dead. Especially Jensen. And yet, he was going to go in and try to get himself an audience with the Director himself.

Felicia would kill him if she knew. Good thing she didn’t know.

The next day, Jensen was up at the crack of dawn, or rather _before_ the crack of dawn, since it was November and Seattle was far enough north that dawn came pretty late. He started out by calling the PISA mutant tip line and spun his tale. Lawyer in from Canada, wealthy and important clients, entirely confidential, but his clients have reason to believe that a family member who may or may not be a mutant may be mixed up in something in Seattle. His clients had sent him to try to locate the missing family member and extricate them from any legal encumbrances, since he was duly licensed in both PISA and Canada. He kept dropping hints and insinuating the clients may have been prominent semi-retired Canadian politicians with ties to First Nations leadership, with various Canadian officials and Ambassadors on speed dial, so to say. He crossed his fingers and hoped like hell no one _actually_ contacted the people he had implied might have been the type of people who were his clients, and doubly apologized to Tahmoh for more or less stealing his personal history. As far as he knew Tahmoh was safely at home in Canada with his family where he had retreated to recover from the burn injuries he—a pyrotechnic—had somewhat ironically sustained in the attack on Haven. The point was the story was just important enough to warrant attention, but plausibly and convincingly confidential enough that no one could press for more information. Backed up with Jensen’s (legitimately earned, but brough current with the assistance of hacking) credentials, he made an impression. 

By the time he got off the phone at 0900, he had got a meeting scheduled with an Agent Padalecki of the VAC at 1545 that afternoon. Although who Agent Padalecki was, he was not sure.

“I’m sorry, I am not familiar with that agent,” he tried, cringing even as the words left his mouth.

The liaison who was fielding his call (about the sixth person he’d spoken to in the last hour), a woman by the name of Amanda Tapping, responded sounding as if she had anticipated, maybe even _expected_ the question, “Agent Padalecki is new to the VAC, but comes to us with an extensive background in organized crime, particularly organized crime trafficking mutants. He’s the lead agent of our first team and will be happy to assist you.”

Jensen thanked her and hung up, but with credentials like that, he couldn’t help thinking this Agent Padalecki was either there to entrap Jensen, or there was something _much_ bigger going on than he had expected. 

At 1530 Jensen arrived at the imposing pinkish granite façade of the VAC headquarters, one of several executive branch buildings retrofitted out of old Seattle office towers in a long, broad swath the started at the water, headed up the hill, north through the old courthouses, and then over into some old hotels. If he recalled his history correctly, the building down the hill to the west had been a federal government office building back when PISA was still part of the United States. 

Dressed in his best (and at this point) only suit, but at least a suit that cost enough and wasn’t so far out of date, that it was consistent with the persona he was trying to portray, Jensen arrived at the automatic revolving front doors, and quickly got in line to go through security. His credentials and were at the ready and his freshly re-issued PISA Bar Card had been 3-D printed before he left Canada to ensure it contained all required validity markers, seals, and other indicia. Technically, it wasn’t an _official_ card, since Felicia had hacked the bar to get the program to run on his printer, but the card passed inspection with the guards, and if anyone pressed the inquiry further, the Bar would show it had issued him a card and everything would match up. 

He passed through the ID check, then the metal detector—never had he been more grateful for Misha’s medical expertise that had repaired his arm without need for metal pins or screws—the retinal scanner, and finally the backscatter scanner, after which he was asked to stand with his arms out and pull back his sleeves and collar so an eagle-eyed guard could scan for any telltale mutant markings. He didn’t dare use his telepathy even to skim the guards’ thoughts as he knew the VAC had active telepathy scanners that would alert them if anyone inside the building reached out with telepathy. That was one of the earlier feats of medical evaluation and engineering that dated back to before the breakup of the United States and before the thorough vilification of mutants—people wanted to know if others were secretly reading their minds. The technology had been ubiquitous back when Jensen had been doing regular border crossings shuttling mutants safely out of VAC’s clutches, and had surely been augmented and improved since then… especially if the VAC did have captive or cooperative telepaths working with them as the survivors of Haven had long suspected.

Jensen was confident the specially formulated masking makeup Misha had sent to him by express drone before he left was brushed on every marking, even the ones well-hidden by his clothes, and to be extra sure, he used his telekinesis to bind it all to his skin. That was one skill he was confident VAC couldn’t detect when used at the microlevel as he currently was. VAC’s ideas about telekinesis and telekinetics in general had always leaned more towards the big and bold—people who could yank other people around, stop cars, flip busses, yank planes out of the sky, juggle asteroids, that sort of thing. They just failed to consider minute amounts of telekinetic force could be applied on the molecular level or smaller. (Thank goodness for small favors.) The makeup and telekinesis worked in tandem to protect Jensen from most of the other tools in VAC’s arsenal that might detect him—the makeup was formulated to block scanners that would seek to reveal the skin pigmentation underneath, while breathing and looking like his real skin, and being stable enough to not brush or rub off without the right kind of remover. Jensen’s telekinesis layered over that to provide extra insurance the makeup would not transfer to any surfaces it touched (or anyone who shook hands—if there was one thing Jensen knew about VAC they were way too keen to get up in people’s personal space, and always went for antiquated greetings like handshakes rather than bows, head nods, verbal acknowledgments. The makeup also chemically bonded to his skin so if some tech actually managed to block his telekinesis, it would still stay on. 

After a few more seconds of waiting from the head guard, who was confirming Jensen’s appointment, he was cleared through security.

“Mr. Ackles?” A twenty-something blonde woman with slightly more-wild-than-regulation hair and an altered off-the-rack suit (but a nice one), said as she emerged from the middle bank of elevators. “I’m agent Kathryn Newton. I work on Agent Padalecki’s team. I can take you to your meeting.” Interestingly, she did _not_ offer her hand, and instead bowed and stepped back, giving Jensen a respectable amount of space. 

Interesting. Very, interesting. 

“Thank you,” Jensen answered, returning the bow. “I have to say, I appreciate Agent Padalecki taking time out of what I am sure must be a very busy schedule to meet with me. I confess, when I called the hotline this morning looking for assistance, I did not expect such a… robust response.” Jensen didn’t need skin contact or active telepathy to recognize Agent Newton as being a mutant. She was well-disguised, with not a hint of visible marking on her skin, and but she was a mutant nonetheless, an immediate there-not-there presence in the back of his mind.

Jensen swallowed his surprise when Agent Newton led him to the middle bank of elevators. He had honestly expected VAC would have its premier team somewhere high up, possibly even above the clouds, somewhere prestigious where they could supervise the city from above. But instead the agent took him to the 26th floor, almost dead in the center of the 47-story building. 

As if reading his mind, but not giving any hint of using telepathy, Agent Newton said, “Agent Padalecki’s office is in the VAC’s secure floors.” 

Jensen looked around, but nothing on the floor looked all that special. The central elevator bank occupied a large chunk of an otherwise wide-open floor with panoramic views through windows all the way around. He realized the windows had been modified compared to what he saw on the rest of the outside of the building, here extending from floor to ceiling. There were no offices in sight. He followed Agent Newton around the elevator bank to the southeast and _then_ he understood. The entire floor outside the elevator lobby was pressure sensitive with a series of ballistic plexiglass barriers between them and the far wall, which wasn’t a wall at all, but photosensitive glass doors barring the entryway to a sky bridge over to the next building to the south—a far newer, more sinister black office building that was one of the few in Seattle that had been both built, finished, and upgraded in the last half-century. 

“The secure floors cannot only be reached from this building through this walkway. When cleared, we will connect to the 27th floor, where we will wait in reception until you are called to one of our conference rooms on the 29th. Please stay with an escort at all times, or you will be terminated on sight.” As she spoke, she pressed her palm to a seemingly clear vertical pillar, which soon revealed itself to be a smartglass console. The console appeared to read her palmprint, retinal scan, and either voice print or DNA—he could not tell which---before the outermost barrier lowered and the console dispensed a badge. “Please come here for identity verification.” 

The console completed the process on Jensen, after which, apparently satisfied with his identity, the outer barrier lit up green in the middle, and split to allow passage. 

Agent Newton clipped the badge to Jensen’s chest and led the way through the barriers. She walked at a perfectly timed pace, so as they reached each new barrier, the barrier behind them had closed so the new barrier could open. The plexiglass turned green and parted a total of five times before they reached the opaqued glass doors. There, another console checked their identities again and scanned their badges before parting to let them through. 

To Jensen’s surprise, the skybridge had no other visible security and they passed the entire span without being stopped again. On the other side, their badges and Jensen’s ID and bar card were inspected again by armed guards. Then they passed through another backscatter scanner, before being admitted to the lobby on the other side.

Newton instructed Jensen to wait in a small seating area just inside the door. The couch was some sort of high-grade vegan leather and all around him the building was all open sightlines with more clear barriers. The windows here were smoky colored, dimming the view of the outside world. And the floor was quiet—while dozens of people bustled about, scanning through barriers and tapping away on tablets, none of them spoke. Even the scanners did not make noise. 

A few meters away, with only one barrier between it and them, was a central elevator bank. After a few moments a team of guards stepped out and silently motioned to Agent Newton. She gestured for Jensen to stand, they crossed through the one scanner-barrier combo, and then stepped into the elevator, which whisked them two floors up before depositing them again. This floor was far more inviting, with the walls painted in light blues and beiges, and the windows only slightly dimmed, so plenty of light entered, but it there was no risk of overheating, even in the sunnier summer months. 

The guards stayed by the elevator when they departed, and Kathryn led him down one hall and around a corner to a small conference room, currently occupied by a single agent.

“Jensen Ackles, this is Special Agent in Charge, Jared Padalecki, my boss,” Agent Newton said, gesturing Jensen inside, before taking a seat near the door, and flicking some sort of switch, which Jensen assumed were privacy protocols.

“Pleased to meet you,” Agent Padalecki said, reaching out. Of course, he went for the classic VAC handshake. He was _tall_ several inches taller than Jensen, and broad in the shoulders with neatly cropped short hair that hinted it might have a wave if allowed to get a little longer. His cheeks dimpled when he smiled and his smile seemed, warm, genuine—two qualities Jensen had never associated with VAC. If not for the circumstances, Jensen would feel _drawn_ to Agent Padalecki. Which, okay, maybe there were some consequences of foregoing almost all human contact for a decade. 

Jensen shook his head reached out to complete the handshake, but as he moved, a split second before Agent Padalecki’s hand squeezed his, there it was… That same there, not there, feeling of his thoughts, tickling the back of his mind. It was more subtle than Agent Newton’s and gone so fast, Jensen would have thought he was imagining it, if there wasn’t also something _else_ so familiar about it. 

Before he could think on the sensation anymore, Padalecki released his hand, and said, “I understand you have business of an internationally sensitive nature.” 

Jensen swallowed hard, trying to clear the new surprise from his mind. “I do,” he said.

Agent Padalecki indicated Jensen should sit, and he obliged. Jensen then launched into the same story he’d spun for the half-dozen staffers and liaisons and analysts he’d spoken to on the phone that morning. Important clients, well connected to Canadian government, missing family member, possible mutant. Jensen presented him as a lawyer and explained his work typically involved addressing mutant affairs from a family law perspective—“Safe commitments, legal housing, conservatorships in places that allow them, keeping mutant connections quiet, and executing families rights to the fullest extent of the law when their family members either emerge as mutants or get tangled up in mutant-related activities,” he explained. “If one of my clients wants a family member out of mutant detention, I use any legal means available to make that happen. If a client wants to move their mutant family member from one designated residence area or prison to one closer to home, I use legal avenues to pursue those goals. A client’s kid emerges, hides it, and is discovered later and the family wants them sent to a private asylum or remanded into family custody, that also falls within my purview and expertise.”

Padalecki nodded, “I looked into your credentials and it appears you used to work in both PISA and Canada, but your name has not appeared much on this side of the border in the last decade.”

“I haven’t worked in PISA in ten years, because ten years ago VAC agents operating under the Seven Nations’ Treaty in Canada made damn sure there was no need for my services on this side of the border when you took out Haven. No more mutant revolutionary stronghold, no more uprisings, no more hippie kids crossing the border or getting in trouble, and no more Canadians with mutant family members in PISA.” Jensen spread his hands and half shrugged. “I haven’t been to PISA in almost a decade, because I haven’t needed to, until now.”

“So, what does bring you here, now?” Agent Padalecki asked, and how can we help.”

Jensen launched into the cover story again, mentally crossing his fingers and begging for Tahmoh’s forgiveness should he ever find out—very high-profile a family that was, for example, close to or involved in government, with a family member who may or may not be a mutant, who was missing. Based on the information the family had, the missing family member was last heard from having crossed into PISA and having arrived in Seattle in particular. “My client wants to locate this family member and bring them home. Whether the person is a mutant, somehow involved with a mutant, or just missing they want me to locate the missing family member and return them to Canada.”

“Okay,” Agent Padalecki said, dragging the word out to add an extra syllable or two. His expression was contemplative, maybe a little confused. “I am not quite sure why or how VAC would help you, considering if there is a person who is either involved in a mutant crime or is themselves a criminal and a mutant, VAC is well within its rights to detain, prosecute, and process the individual according to PISA law, and PISA generally does not allow mutants or mutant-affiliated criminals who commit crimes in PISA to be extradited to Canada.” 

Jensen spread his hands even wider and smiled. “And this is where the potential international incident bit comes in,” he began. “The Seven Nations’ Treaty, the same treaty that gives VAC the authority to cross borders and operate anywhere in North America they see fit, provided their operations involve mutants who have had some sort of contact with PISA, or who would otherwise be a threat to law and order in PISA, also contains a specific provision that applies to relations with Canada. Section 20 provides that any variant human or person involved with a variant human who is a citizen of Canada and becomes embroiled in mutant activity in PISA can be, upon request of the Canadian government, remanded to Canada for disposition in accordance with Canadian law.” He paused for effect and watched the moment Agent Padalecki connected the dots. 

Padalecki’s eyes went wide and he nodded in spite of himself.

“My client is requesting their copious government contacts to invoke Section 20, but they also want to keep the whole—” Jensen waved his left hand expansively, “situation on the down low as long as possible, particularly because it could enflame political debates and potentially become a thorny spot for international relations. Compared to PISA, Canada is a land of mutant advocates, and this sort of thing can well, cause parliamentary difficulties.”

Padalecki nodded in understanding.

“I will complete all paperwork, writs, motions, and extradition paperwork if my client’s missing family member is indeed located and involved in mutant activity, but in order to do that without further exposing my client’s situation or possibly running afoul of VAC operations, I need to know if there are any known mutants or mutant groups operating in or around Seattle at this time. “I’ve done the rounds in the official mutant habitation district and my client’s relative is nowhere to be found. I know you had a big mutant trafficking bust a few months ago, but is there any other smuggling going on, or any underground casinos—pleasure houses, even—or mutant crime rings that have cropped up in the interim and might have either a new member or a new hostage?”

Padalecki and Newton shared a look over Jensen’s shoulder. “Do you have any specifics—anything at all you can share about this… relative’s identity that might help us locate them?”

“This is all strictly confidential, and as I said, keeping my client’s identity a secret is of the utmost importance. I can say the individual is between the ages of 35 and 45, male, and relatively light-skinned. I know that’s not much to go on, but I cannot give away any detail that might jeopardize my client’s identity. I may get permission to disclose more, but not until I have some sort of lead,” he looked up at Agent Padalecki, eyes wide, imploring. When he’d thought of the description, he’d had someone else in mind, but he realized the description also fit Agent Padalecki… and there was that, odd familiar tug of recognition again.

Before he could muse on the issue further, there was a loud nock at the door. Jensen turned to watch Agent Newton consult something on the smartglass of the table in front of her, before turning back to the door and entering a code.

A man stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, securing it with another code. He was tall and well-built wearing a charcoal gray bespoke suit. His hair was dark and wavy, accompanied by a neatly trimmed, graying beard and mustache that complimented his tanned skin. He had laugh lines around his eyes that would have been friendly on anyone else, but somehow made him more intimidating, sinister. Jensen knew this man. His face haunted his nightmares. Flashback after flashback of gloating news clips in which FBI Assistant Director and VAC Director Jeffrey Dean Morgan congratulated his agents on the successful raid that destroyed the Haven complex, mutant terrorist stronghold. His voice echoed in Jensen’s ears, and it was all he could do not to mouth the words from that address aloud. 

But Morgan showed no recognition, his gaze fell on Jensen, but his expression was one of interest, not malice. “Unfortunately, there is a mutant crime ring in Seattle that popped up after the Kelana cartel was eliminated. We’ve been investigating them and believe they have several dozen members, most of whom have not yet been identified. They’re very dangerous—they killed one of my agents and we still aren’t entirely certain how they did it. Is there anything you can share about your client’s relative’s power that might help us determine if they might be one of the gang members.” 

Huh, so he must have been listening somehow, despite the privacy protocols. Or maybe those weren’t privacy protocols, Jensen wondered. Part of Jensen wanted to reach out and scan Morgan—see if he really was the hateful human he pretended to be, or if he was maybe a self-loathing mutant? He didn’t give off an echo in Jensen’s mind, but that wasn’t definitive proof. But any more in-depth scan was too risky. After all, this was the man who, as far as the Haven survivors believed, had telepaths on his side, working to hunt them down. But…

If Jensen’s perceptions were right, and he was certain they were. There were not one but _two_ mutants on Morgan’s premier VAC team. If Morgan had mutants on his side, or had otherwise weaponized telepaths, then how had he missed the two mutants in his inner circle? Unless Padalecki and Newton _were_ the telepaths—

Padalecki broke Jensen from his mental freefall, as he stood up and spoke, “Mr. Ackles, may I introduce Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Director of the Variant Affairs Commission.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Jensen said extending his hand.

“It’s a pleasure,” Morgan responded, leaning forward and grasping Jensen’s hand in both of his as he pumped up and down in a crushing handshake. No hint of anything mutant about him. Double huh. Morgan released his hand and gestured for them all to sit again. “But as I asked, is there anything you can tell us about this client’s power?”

Jensen sighed and did his best to look and sound regretful. “I genuinely cannot say whether the person is a mutant or not. Any disclosure of that information without my client’s permission would violate my oath as an attorney, and possibly escalate the risk of an international incident. I can promise to get permission to give you more information if I have any kind of a lead.”

Morgan didn’t answer, he just regarded Jensen silently and nodded.

It was Padalecki who spoke, breaking the awkward silence. “Well, Mr. Ackles, thank you for your time. Do you have local contact information where you can be reached in case we have something for you? We have a number of mug shots and surveillance videos related to that crime ring, these individuals have _not_ been identified through normal channels, including facial recognition and markings patterns database, so any assistance or insight you might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated. It will, uh, take us a little while to get that set up, but I would like to contact you, call you back in to review them at a mutually convenient time?” Padalecki’s voice ticked up in a question, as his eyes darted back and forth between Newton, Morgan, and Jensen, as if looking for some verification.

“We should have those ready sometime in the next two days,” Morgan offered.

“That would be great,” Jensen said, then rattled off his local number—an untraceable cell set up by Felicia—and expressed regret that he did not have the local number on his business cards. He pulled one of the (fake, but backstopped) cards out of his wallet, and took Padalecki’s card in exchange.

Then they all stood, and both Padalecki and Morgan _again_ shook hands with him—for his own sake he was grateful VAC agents were regularly screened for illness, because that kind of behavior would be seen as threatening almost anywhere else. When Padalecki shook his hand, he got the same flicker of mental presence that was so, so familiar. Once again, Newton bowed, but did not shake hands. He was willing to bet her power was more easily revealed by touch.

Then Agent Newton led Jensen out taking the same route back the way they came—elevator, guards to skybridge, skybridge to barriers, through the barrier gauntlet, and back to the elevator lobby. Only this time, she took him around the elevator shafts to the right headed towards the east side of the building hugging close to the wall and past what was interestingly marked as a women’s bathroom. Considering PISA had adopted multigender bathrooms by law around the time Jensen had first fled to Canada as a twenty-three-year-old law school graduate, he got the sense this bathroom wasn’t really used. For anything. But Newton didn’t stop there, instead she wedged the tip of her badge in a chip reader on a nondescript door just past the bathroom, shoved the door open when it unlocked with a click, and grabbed Jensen by the arm and tugged him inside.

_Oh_ , well that explained the lack of handshakes. Newton was an electrokinetic. Energy manipulator, absorber, hacker, projector. She had good control, better he’d seen in anyone, but the electrical currents that ran through her skin, along her well-concealed markings to be exact, were almost impossible to perfectly suppress. If he had to bet, she could probably suppress it in a pinch to pass a surprise screening or expend as much energy as possible to pass more easily with warning, but the more physical contact she had, the easier it would be to get caught. The slightest slipup, and Jensen was willing to bet most, if not all, VAC’s employees were trained to spot an electrokinetic’s energy fluctuations.

She looked at him with determination and something akin to defiant _trust_ in her eyes. He couldn’t tell if she had pegged him as a mutant, but he could tell she knew that he’d made her, and she didn’t care. 

After Newton had pulled him down one flight of stairs, stopping on a poorly lit concrete landing tucked into a corner of the 25th floor. “This is a camera and mic blindspot. I take the stairs, even with guests about one out of every five times I leave the secure area, so this isn’t out of the ordinary,” she explained in a rush. 

“There are two things you need to know. The mutant crime gang seem to be mostly timeturners and their robbing banks. Everything about the case is completely out of the ordinary, so if your client is a timeturner, that’s probably where they’re involved.

“The other, thing neither of them will tell you is there are almost three _thousand_ mutants missing from the Kelana cartel. They weren’t dumped, sold, traded, disposed of, or otherwise killed. They’re not hiding out in any former Kelana holdings, and Kelana records confirm the location of each mutant was accounted for in Seattle, only hours before the raid. It’s been four and a half months and there’s no sign of them. I know Padalecki and Morgan both suspect a mole or competing governmental agency, and there’s been no sign of _any_ mutants being smuggled out of the city since July. So, if your client isn’t a timeturner, assuming they didn’t go missing yesterday, there’s a decent chance they’re mixed up in, whatever that is.”

Jensen couldn’t keep the alarm from showing on his face. The same alarm he heard reflected in Newton’s voice. What did that mean? Three thousand missing mutants? Missing from VAC? And once again, the whole telepaths on the VAC payroll angle just didn’t make sense. Seattle wasn’t a small town, but with that many mutants missing, at least some of them had to be hiding together, so why hadn’t VAC found them?

“Thank you,” he said earnestly. He met Newton’s eye and smiled. “Thank you,” he mouthed again, as she started walking again, taking him down to the 24th floor, and through an almost identical elevator lobby as on the 26th, only here, there were walls dividing off parts of the floor outside the lobby. He followed Newton out of the building and made his way back to the hotel, wondering what was going on.

Was Agent Padalecki the mutant he was looking for? Why had he been called here now, when there were so many mutants missing? Were the two related? And how were there two—or at least two, who knows, maybe there were more, mutants working in the VAC’s most inner circle? Why were they there? And did Morgan know?

Jensen’s thoughts raced in circles all evening long, even when he lay awake in bed, trying to drop off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Interlude--Alberta, Canada, November 2070_ **

Felicia pulled her parka tighter around her body as she crossed the windswept parking lot to the trading post, her boots crunching on hard-packed snow with every step. If she was honest with herself, she hated the quarterly ritual trek to “civilization” to get supplies. 

For one thing, with a population of 301 people spread out as far as they could get and still just barely qualify for village status, the village around the trading post was hardly civilization. For another, these days, no mutant really wanted to be in civilization. Even normally tolerant communities could change their tune without notice—if they got spooked, if there was a new mutant issue in the news, if the wrong official was visiting, if it was a day ending in “y”… 

Then there were the issues that made it unpleasant for her, specifically, to be around others. Plenty of humans knew enough about mutant markings to understand what Felicia’s meant, and there were plenty of people who could keep their cool around a telekinetic or even a telepath, who positively flipped their shit when faced with a truthsayer. It was one thing for someone to read your mind, and quite another to face someone who would reveal to you even the truths you didn’t know were lies and could command you to do anything. 

And on the mutant side, there were plenty of mutants who saw her markings, made an educated guess, and came to the right conclusion about her identity. With every passing year, it seemed there were more and more mutants who believed it was Felicia who had betrayed Haven to the VAC.

But she was running low on food, and with more and more people blaming her for their current situation, Felicia didn’t have the clout—or the sympathy vote—to persuade one of the rural delivery services to trudge out to her homestead. So she kept her head down and walked clockwise around the outside of the trading post following the arrows carved into the snowbank looking for an open window.

The Village Trading Post was in a design typical of most shops and depots designed after the early 2020s. Goods were delivered to a loading dock on one of the building’s four sides where they were taken into the central warehouse where the workers sorted and boxed goods into customers’ orders. When the order was ready, the customer received an alert and an appointment time to come to the trading post, where the customer could follow the signs and lines until they reached an open window to conclude their transaction.

Felicia rounded the corner and spotted an open window on the end. She stepped up to the plexiglass barrier and pressed the button to ring the bell that summoned the clerk. From there it was a matter of showing her order confirmation and ID to the clerk through the barrier and while the clerk disappeared back into the warehouse to retrieve it. When the clerk disappeared back inside, Felicia stepped back and waited, rubbing her hands up and down her arms against the cold.

Voices drifted over to her from around the corner to her left. 

“Still, I think it served him right, abandoning everyone like he did,” a man’s voice said.

“Served him right?” a younger man’s voice said, incredulous. “I heard he went deaf in one ear, lost part of his arm, that seems like an awful lot—”

“For abandoning his people, people he’d sworn to protect? People who died? No, I’d say it’s what he deserved,” said the first man.

 _Shit_ , Felicia thought, her suspicions roused, a distinctive twinge of fear that had nothing to do with her abilities lanced through her gut.

The sound of more crunching snow reverberated around the corner. “Are you still going on about that?” A woman’s voice asked, sounding slightly bitter like this was a conversation she’d heard before. “It’s been ten years.”

Fear cemented into certainty and Felicia took a few steps backwards away from the trading post window to see if she could get a look at the speakers.

“Ten years, and thanks to that asshole we don’t have a place of our own,” the first man said.

The woman scoffed.

Felicia could see three individuals bundled up in dark parkas, boots, and gloves. One was shorter than the other two, while one of the taller individuals was a little less bulky. Two of the three were wearing masks, while the third was wearing a balaclava. She was pretty sure the tall, less bulky one was the woman, but beyond that, she couldn’t tell much. All three were so bundled up none of their markings were visible, so she had no idea what she was dealing with.

“I mean, can you really blame him? It’s the fault of the fucking VAC and their pet telepaths that we don’t have our own place. I mean even if he hadn’t split, what good would it have done. We still wouldn’t be able to safely congregate,” the second man, who Felicia could now see was the shorter individual, protested.

“Shh, shut up, don’t fucking invoke them,” hissed the woman, crowding closer to the shorter man, while the taller man pulled her back.

“That’s assuming you think it’s really the telepaths that found us. We’ve never proved that was the case,” the first man said, when the woman had settled down.

“Us?” the second man said.

“I was there!” the first guy said. 

Blood turned to ice in Felicia’s veins, and she began creeping backwards, trying not to make any noise. 

“And if Jensen hadn’t betrayed us,” the fist guy continued, any hope Felicia had that she was misinterpreting the situation going right out the window. “Haven could have held, or we could have rebuilt…”

“Look man, I’m sorry, but the you-know-what would just find you again,” the second man said, shaking his head and making an exaggerated shrug.

“If you buy that’s how they really found us,” the first man muttered.

“Oh yeah?” the second man started.

“Everyone who was there knows it was actually that bitch truthsayer who disclosed our location. Convenient how she always knew when anyone else was lying, but we could never tell if _she_ was telling the truth. More convenient how she decides to go on a supply run just in time to miss the raid when she hadn’t left Haven in a year,” the woman interjected. 

Felicia felt her face heat and turn red, embarrassment flooding through her and coupling with the fear. Jensen had convinced her to go, take the opportunity to clear her head because she was going stir crazy and there was a faction of mutants who distrusted truthsayers on principle who had been harassing her, making her daily life exhausting. She hadn’t known what was going to happen. She knew with metaphysical certainty Jensen hadn’t known either. Whether it was sheer luck that she wasn’t there or whether the VAC had somehow known she wasn’t there and timed their attack accordingly—perhaps had she still been in Haven there would have been some deception she could have detected, some way she could have prevented the attack or alerted everyone to their impending doom sooner. 

If she had been there, maybe so many wouldn’t have died. If she had been there, maybe Jensen wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Then again, if she’d been there, maybe she would be one of the casualties… another name on the rolls of the lost. Just another name mentioned in an annual toast.

While Felicia’s mind turned back to her unanswered questions, the other three mutants went on arguing, their anger overriding their attempts to keep their voices down.

“Oh yeah, you so sure VAC telepaths didn’t find us? You wanna go have a big get together? Throw a party?”

“I’m not going to take stupid chances,” the woman shot back.

“So, if you think that’s a stupid chance, why are you so sure Jensen betrayed you, or the truthsayer?” the second man asked.

The woman swore something under her breath, and for a moment it sounded like there was going to be a scuffle, when the distinctive sliding sound of the plexiglass barrier opening interrupted the silence. “Excuse me, but I’m going to ask you to disperse,” a new male voice said, amplified slightly by the trading post’s ambient mics. 

“Excuse me?” the woman asked. “We’re following all of your posted guidelines, and we’re still waiting for our orders.”

“Like you, I’m not to eager to have any strike teams from one of the ex-American states to come descending on my place of business. So please go back to your vehicles and wait. We’ll contact you when your orders are ready,” the newcomer ordered.

“How’d you know we were mutants?” the second, shorter man, challenged. “We’re not displaying markings—”

“No, but your status is on your registration paperwork from when you first set up your account, and for everyone’s safety, we do not allow more than three variants on site at a time,” the manager explained.

“Come on, if you’re going to be a racist jerk you could at least say the word,” the first man objected. “And last I checked there were only three of us.”

Felica was backing away in earnest now. Her order should be ready any moment now, but she’d go and wait in her truck. She shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, and she could solve the situation easily by getting out of it. She wasn’t sure if it was the snow crunching under her feet or the gaze of the store manager focused on her, but at that moment, the woman, the one who had been voicing her vitriol against Felicia spotted her, smacked the taller man on the arm, and all three whirled around so they were facing Felicia.

“You!” the woman shouted.

“I was just leaving,” Felicia began, but cut herself off when the sound of another plexiglass window caught her attention. 

“Ms. Day,” the clerk said, “your order is ready, available at door A3 now.” A louder, electronic double beep sounded followed by the grating of a door rolling up, and sure enough, there were Felicia’s palettes and boxes stacked up on a sled and being pushed out the doorway onto the packed snow beside the service window. 

“I can’t believe you serve her!” the woman protested, pointing her finger at Felicia.

Felicia jogged over to grab the rope attached to the sled and began to pull as soon as the sled was clear of the trading post, her boots struggling to get traction against the icy ground where snowblower treads had packed the snow down and sunlight had made it melt and get icy. 

The trio of disgruntled mutants started to head towards her.

“I have no quarrel with you,” Felicia said, panting slightly from the weight of the sled. “And I am leaving.” She turned to the manager and gave a curt bow. “Good day, and sorry for any trouble.”

“Always happy to serve a loyal customer,” the manager responded and turned back towards the door he had exited.

“Run away then. It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? If you’d been there, Haven would still be standing… Traitor!” the mutant woman screamed after her.

Felicia pulled the sled as fast as she could up the slight grade between the trading post and her parking space. By the time she reached her truck, she was out of breath and sweating. She was well out of sight of the mutant trio, and so far, they’d shown no sign of following her. _Thank god of small favors,_ she thought to herself as she began the laborious task of lifting and shifting the boxes and palettes from the sled to the truck bed. When she’d finally gotten the last flat of powdered milk in place between two boxes of water filters, she closed the tailgate and secured the bed cover over the top. It wouldn’t do to have her supplies blowing away on the long drive back to her outpost.

As she pulled out of the parking lot and turned back onto the road, she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that had settled over her. It wasn’t the near-confrontation with the other mutants, or their thorough character assassinations of her and Jensen, or any sort of misplaced guilt over what had happened to Haven ten years before. It was two things they’d said.

_It’s the fault of the fucking VAC and their pet telepaths that we don’t have our own place._

False.

_If you’d been there, Haven would still be standing._

True.

In the years since Haven, Felicia and everyone she knew had been… restrained with their theories and sparse with their words. To be honest, she’d shied away from talking or even thinking about it. No one who survived knew much about what had happened. Jensen had been unconscious and severely wounded from the start of the attack. Felicia hadn’t been there. The residents who had escaped were all on the outskirts of the enclave, all on the northeast side. None of them had seen what had precipitated it or even what had caused the explosion. The other leaders who had been there, like Jim and Amanda, had died. Jensen had come out of the coma two months later with a telepathic echo of Jim’s decision to send Jensen out and to stay behind, but that was _it_. 

Until now. Maybe no one had said the right words before or maybe she needed the time and space to get perspective, but Felecia could feel the currents of truth and untruth flowing through the statements. It was the VAC who had spearheaded the attack, but VAC _telepaths_ weren’t the reason they had been found. And whatever had led to the attack, it would not have succeeded if she had been there. 

Felicia shuddered. What did that mean? At its heart, the most obvious implication, a _lie_ was central to the attack’s success. There must have been some deception that Felicia would have detected had she been there. And if it wasn’t telepaths, then their decade of extra isolation was for naught. But what did that mean for Jensen and his mission? If not telepaths, then what or who might be waiting for him on the other side of the border?

~~~

**  
_Seattle, PISA, November 2070_   
**

Jensen had _not_ been looking forward to telling Felicia his hunch that the mutant who had called him to Seattle was none other than a VAC agent, who was apparently, secretly(?) a mutant. She reacted even worse then he expected, but after she recounted the story about the trading post, and her new certainty they had not been tracked by mutants, Jensen felt nothing but more confused.

This mutant—Padalecki, Jared, whatever—he hadn't been with VAC ten years ago. 

"Jensen, VAC may have figured out how to make humans feel like mutants—no,” Felicia said, over their voice-only call. 

“So that’s not true, Padalecki is a mutant?” Jensen asked. 

“Yes, but,” Felicia sighed. 

“What but? How is there a but?” he asked incredulous. 

“There’s something more. Jensen, I can’t put my finger on it, I can’t find the right words, but there’s something much bigger. And you this story about thousands of missing mutants…” 

“I just realized, if it is Jared, the ‘us’ he was going on and on about the other night could be the missing mutants—maybe, or no—” 

“No, Jensen, stop. That’s true. Somehow, it’s true, but then it slips away like it’s not there, and the feeling is gone. I've never encountered anything like that before, and it could mean PISA has something that can fuck with a truthsayer. Or.... I don't know. He is a mutant." 

“Okay, so now I just have to convince him to come to me?” he asked uncertainly. 

“I’m coming to Seattle.” 

Jensen blinked. Blinked again and let himself fall back on the bed. “Felicia, that is a complete non sequitur. You can’t be here. They know who you are, what you look like, and what your abilities are. If they get a hint of you anywhere, they’ll gladly behead you on live TV, do _not_ come here. I can handle this.” 

“That’s just it,” Felicia said with a sigh, “Everything I hear, everything I say, is telling me, I have to be here. I started packing when I got home from the trading post. I am coming.” 

“Felicia—” but she had already disconnected the call. 

Frustrated, Jensen resolved himself to ferret out Padalecki’s physical location to see if he could figure out how the whole, mutant, not mutant, mutant thing was working. His head throbbed and his eyes ached. All he really wanted was sleep, but there was too much to do and to little time. 

Of that he was sure. 

~~~

While Jensen had lost the connection with Jared, if it was Jared, the last time he'd tried to trace him, Jensen still had a sense of _where_ the mutant was located. So, he pulled out his map and followed the path back where it led.

The destination was one of the most secure neighborhoods in all Seattle, the type where only government employees and certain business people who meet very strict standards were authorized to live. The neighborhood was gated, and the entire place was locked down and monitored. It was the sort of place reserved for high level managers and directors, and there was positively no way _Jensen_ could get in during the daytime. 

He returned that night and slipped in after dark, and followed his memory of the signal to a particular townhouse. It had a nice, “modern” style, three floors with a rooftop deck and multiple bedrooms, but as far as Jensen could tell, there was only one person who lives there. 

He got a look at the person thorough an upstairs window, and brushed against his mind, it was the same person as the other night. And in that moment, he felt the same strangeness, the mind’s thoughts were there, but not there, almost mirrored, deliberate, just out of touch. Jensen’s mind wanted to just slide off the surface or get lost in an illusion, but he did’t let it. Then the guy, and it was a guy—stepped closer to the window. Jensen could make out features, probably close to him in age, clean cut, but strong, tall with a muscular frame hidden under a suit, with wavy hair that threatened to escape and be longer than regulation for feds. And yes, unless he had a twin or a clone, that was Agent Padalecki. 

Jensen watched as the man sat on his couch and slipped into appeared to be meditation, and Jensen could feel it, the emergence, calling to him. He’d found his mutant. Frustrated, Jensen sneaked out of the restricted community again, slipping into one of the few late-night coffee shops that served pedestrians, and hailed a cab back to the general vicinity of his hotel.

~~~

**_November 2070, Seattle, PISA_ **

He was running. He was _young_. The wind whipped through his hair as his short legs moved faster and faster. Honeysuckle and jasmine from his mother's garden filled the air, and the silhouette of a bird swooped against the setting sun. 

The world was broken, falling, flaming out. But here in their little sliver of normal, Jensen had a yard and a field and a creek and he could _run_! And he knew he could go faster! He believed it, he could feel the earth, the grass and wild flower and trees, the air, even the distant weight of the setting sun. He could feel the way it all fit together, gravity, weak forces, strong forces, inertia, momentum, friction. If he reached out… he could pull himself along. He was moving so fast, his feet barely touched the ground. His hands and legs blurred when he looked at them. He was almost flying. 

He could fly. Yes, he _could_. He just needed to reach up for the sky, the sun, the moon, and pull himself towards it while he pushed down against the ground. He did it.

His feet left the ground mid stride and didn't come down. He kept running, but he didn't need to. He could reach out for the horizon and pull himself along. He could just pull and push himself a little higher he was floating, he was flying!!

A loud crack resounded in the night air, louder than a gunshot. Closer than it could possibly be and yet farther away. The sound was everywhere. 

Flocks of birds alighted from trees all around the field, and the creek suddenly jumped its bank and flowed towards Jensen. All around the sound of rumbling as the earth shook and rumbled.

He was still flying, but his concentration faltered in his shock, he let go of his pull on the sun and push against the ground, but he was tumbling, falling…

The shaking slowed, the ground stopped its frantic rolling attempts to jump up and meet him. He snapped out of it and pushed off again floating clear, but the rumbling redoubled. In the distance he heard the crash and tinkling of broken, falling glass. He twisted in midair to see their house, only to see shingles tumbling from the roof.

“No!” The word escaped his lips without thought or will, and he reached out, desperate to hold the house together. 

Abruptly, the house stopped shaking. Did he do that?

Maybe if he stopped the house, he could stop the earth… So, he reached out with his other hand and pushed, then pulled, trying to hold the ground together. But it wasn't that simple. He could feel where the ground had cracked, too much pressure on a fissure deep into bedrock, made weaker by massive infiltration of groundwater. An aquifer, deep and vast, providing water to the town and surrounding towns. He could feel the way it was falling apart, crumbling and heaving. There were intraplate faults that had become unstuck when he pulled on them.

He. Pulled. Jensen had done this when he tried to fly. He'd pushed and pulled too hard, and now the world was falling down. The elation he'd felt moments before evaporated leaving horror in its wake. Jensen dropped to the ground, not even feeling the way his knees buckled under him as he landed on heaving ground. He released his grip on the sky and slid his grasp on the house until he was pushing at the earth holding it together, willing the rocks to stop slipping, the water to stay put, the energy to return to its source. He pushed and pushed and held on even when his vision sparked and whited out and his arms and legs turned to jelly. The air burned in his lungs, and his head throbbed, but he held on until it stopped. 

The end of the shaking, the subsiding of the destruction didn’t register for a minute, because Jensen could feel every fracture and tremor inside himself. But finally, he realized he was trembling and the earth was still. 

When he was certain he could move again, he climbed to his feet and ran on his own two legs as fast as he could all the way back to the house. It took so long. He didn't dare use the horizon to pull himself along let alone fly. He'd flown and he'd almost destroyed everything. 

“Mom?! Mom!” Jensen called as he rounded the now-broken gate into the back garden and sprinted up to the house. There was glass everywhere and shingles, and a big crack in the foundation, but the house still stood. “Mom? Dad? Daddy?” he called out again, as he tripped over the threshold and felt the stab and tear of cloth and flesh as his right arm caught on the jagged wood and steel of the broken back door.

“Jensen?” came his mother's voice at last. She stumbled over fallen knick-knacks and an overturned side table and rushed over to him. “Oh baby, are you okay? Oh god, you're bleeding!” She held onto him with one arm, dropped to her knees among shards of porcelain and strewn books while she looked for anything to stop the bleeding, finding nothing and eventually resorting to tearing off her own lightweight sweater to make a compress and the around his now dangerously bleeding arm.

“Mom?” Jensen said, looking into her eyes, in her awkward kneeling crouch on detritus she was almost level with his eyes. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to. And I couldn’t stop it.”

“Shh, shh, it's not your fault, baby. Just an earthquake. They happen, sometimes, and the important thing is we're all okay. We're all right.” She hugged him and squeezed him close, filling Jensen with such hope that he wanted to believe. He wanted—

Just as suddenly as the dream began, it ended, with Jensen's unconscious mind plunging into the agony of his arm, crushed, half-gone, and literally on fire, as the world exploded around him, reacting on instinct and freezing the reinforced cinder block wall that had suddenly become giant chunks of rubble that all tried to crash into his bloody head. The silence was eerie, so unnatural, because he knew the devastation around him was calamitously loud, yet he could not hear a thing. Then Jim was running up to him and telling him in words and mind to get out, run, something about last hope and not letting the VAC win, but then it was all tumbling again…

The emerging mutant's mind was reaching out to him again, pulling, needy, desperate, calling for Archangel, asking not just for himself but for others, hundreds of others. _Help us, please!_ The mutant called out again. 

_You know where to find me!_ he sent along with the image of the sidewalk café and the time. 

The mutant's desperation eased a little in acknowledgement, and then Jensen was snapping awake. 

He was in his bed, in the hotel room in Seattle. His entire body drenched in sweat, hair plastered to his head, good ear ringing with tinnitus as loud as it had been in the early days when he'd first regained consciousness after haven. He was shaking, shaking so hard the bed was rattling, and he wasn't so sure it was from his shivers and tremors or if it was his telekinesis. 

Breathe. 

He counted to four, slowly, in, then out. Four, long counts on each inhale and exhale, dragging out each breath longer and longer, until finally the buzzing in his fingertips and toes went away, and he stopped shaking. 

The room stopped shaking too.

_Fuck._

He hadn't had any markings the day he'd flown. The markings hadn't shown up until he'd been out of the hospital, 36 stitches holding together the torn flesh of his right arm.

His markings were so light in places, and so mercifully easy to hide with a little concealer and long sleeves and pants, not cutting his hair so short, he didn't know to this day if his family had ever seen them. 

The scar on his right forearm used to be a reminder—a shiny white line, puckered in places, interrupting the patterns on his skin but not breaking them up, patterns formed around the scar rather than bisected by it—a reminder of his power and capacity for destruction by accident, proof that common knowledge about mutants was wrong, a permanent penance for the loss he'd caused through misunderstanding. 

There had been record solar flares that day. And they'd interfered with communications for almost two months after that. He'd stopped the worst of the earthquake, but three people had died and many more were injured. The aquifer leaked and flooded, and not long after caused a drought. It was an accident. A fluke. A kid fascinated with the world who didn't understand his own power. Everything bad and dangerous the government said a out mutants. Only… not. 

His parents didn't blame him (if they knew). The family emigrated to PISA nor long after. And they always tried to give Jensen everything, even the independence to make mistakes. 

But the scar had always served as a reminder too. He never flew again after that. Even long after he'd figured out how to get a handle on his power and control how much he used. 

He sat up in bed, tucking his knees up to his chest, elbows resting on knees, and his head in his hands. Breathing. Just breathing.

He'd relied on that scar as a touchstone, up until the moment it wasn't there any more, because his skin had burned away and half his right forearm was gone, crushed and torn away in the blast at Haven.

Jensen let out another long, measured breath, and popped his head up, looking at the expanse of unblemished human skin that encompassed most of his right forearm.

Misha and the colleagues who had helped him had replaced the missing ulna and three bones in his wrist with a synthetic biopolymer reinforced with a culture from his own DNA. The rest of his arm had been repaired with pins that were later removed to give him the best chance of not setting off metal detectors. They'd been able to regrow some of the missing muscles, tendon, and ligaments with clones from Jensen's own tissue, and for the muscles that were just gone--they'd used a synthetic, monmetalic nanofibre designed for combat reconstructions. Normally inaccessible to normal people, someone, somewhere out there had been interested in helping Jensen out. They'd even grafted and stimulated nerves to try to restore as much function and sensation to his arm as possible. 

But they couldn’t regrow his skin. None of the skin regeneration solutions would work on mutants, with or without the pattern. His own skin was completely burned away, so they'd tried a human biosynth graft, and it had worked. It grew and eventually connected to his own skin with minimal scarring… 

But the scar from his childhood, the reminder of the downside of his potential, was gone. And with it, Jensen often felt like he had lost a part of himself, his identity, his history. Take that, and the hearing loss, and the living in isolation to try to prevent the VAC from finding them again, and Jensen's life for the past decade had felt unreal. More like a dream in which he was a passenger rather than anything resembling a life. He'd often wondered if he wasn't actually dead. Maybe he'd died at Haven with everyone else, like he was supposed to, and this existence was just the slow delusion of his waning consciousness as it failed to grasp he was no longer living. 

But here he was, doing something reckless and stupid, and completely insane that felt a lot like living, and all to help a random mutant calling in the night. And Jensen knew even if it wound up with him dead or in chains, it was worth it to feel this again. To try to do something for someone else.


	7. Chapter 7

**_VAC Headquarters, Seattle, PISA, November 2070_ **

Ever since Jensen Ackles’ visit to the VAC, Morgan had been pressuring Jared more and more to focus on the timewinder robberies and not the missing mutants.

On one hand, Jared was relieved—less time investigating himself, meant less strain and less chance of messing up.

On the other hand, why? The sense of urgency seemed, manufactured. The case was concerning, for the sheer volume and magnitude of the crimes, the number of mutants involved, and the death of at least one agent, but up until Jensen’s visit, Morgan had been prioritizing the missing.

Morgan said he wanted to get as many good images together as possible to show Jensen, so that might be part of the urgency, but again, the explanation rang false.

They caught a second timewinder, but this one claimed to be from a different crew than the crew that robbed the bank where Agent Armstrong was killed. The timewinder was belligerent and evasive, taunting Jared and Agent Sheppard, who was in the interrogation with him. The witness claimed there were dozens of timewinders involved, and VAC had no hope of catching them. When Jared expressed doubt the suspect was really a timewinder, as he was unfamiliar with the strange markings and every one he’d ever heard of had been able to manipulate 30 seconds or less, the suspect did not take it well.

The next thing Jared knew, he was in the same place, but the timewinder was sporting a black eye and complementing him on his right hook, while the silent alarm was going off overhead. Morgan, Kathryn, and other agents came pouring into the room, guns drawn, and as Sheppard looked on with even more confusion. The timewinder threw up his hands in surrender and said they had a lot to learn about timewinders. Whatever just happened it was an active-enough display of mutant powers that it set off the building alarms. 

Jared later learned it was a localized time distortion with half the building losing about 5 minutes of time and being reset. Some people outside the effect radius had essentially superimposed memories. And Jared, well, Jared couldn’t shake the feeling of deja vu.

But he did gather one clue, the pattern of clock-like markings along the timewinder’s wrists. As much as he claimed to not know timewinders, he knew he’d seen that pattern before.

~~~

**  
_Seattle, PISA, Extended-Stay Hotel, November 2070_   
**

Ever since talking to Felicia, Jensen had been debating whether to reach out to Jared outside the VAC. 

After two days, however, Samantha, the liaison officer reached out again to invite Jensen back to view photographs. Jensen decided he couldn’t go back without making contact. If he had to force the issue, he would force it.

So that night, when the mutant Jensen was now confident was Agent Padalecki, reached out at night, his sense of being flickering from nothing to mutant, Jensen gave him a command. “1130 tomorrow. Café. Meet there if you want my help.” 

He felt a nudge of acknowledgment before the mutant presence faded, a little earlier than usual. Jensen was just grateful for the extra couple hours sleep he could get.

<~~~

_  
**Historic District, Sidewalk Café, Seattle, PISA, November 2070**   
_

Jensen leaned back against the metal mesh of the chair's back and waited. He didn't need to glance at his watch to know what time it was. He could hear the time echoing through the minds of those around him. The mutant who summoned him had two minutes before they were late. 

Beeping caught his attention, and he looked up as the automated server rolled up to the table with a steaming bowl of soup and a sandwich under its transparent dome. He waited while the dome opened and the server adjusted its height to the table top and slid the food onto the surface in front of him. 

“Thanks,” Jensen said reflexively as the automated server rolled away. Jensen stared out at the street in front of him and waited. One minute, thirty seconds. He was the only diner at the café right now there were three other tables lining the sidewalk, about three meters apart with electronic heaters stationed in between the tables keeping the temperature comfortable even now in late November. The Café itself was inside a historic brick building. Story was the café had once offered inside dining as well, but of course that was decades ago. The café had instead expanded its kitchen into the unused dining space and set up a separate entrance at one end, for the constant stream of delivery drivers to step up and collect orders. 

The café used automated servers for its onsite diners, but employed living cooks and kitchen staff as well as bussers and cleaners. He watched as a young woman with dark pink hair and multiple ear piercings collected used table service items from the table farthest from him. He could just make out the wave pattern at the base of her neck that identified her as a water elemental, but he didn’t need to see her markings to know she was a mutant. Jensen could feel her, even with his telepathy locked down tight. That was one of the reasons Jensen had picked this place, and also part of the gamble. 

If the mutant reaching out to him really was Agent Padalecki, then this was somewhere Padalecki would never go as an agent. He would never patronize an establishment that skirted the rules about employing mutants and looked the other way. In PISA, mutants were only employable within their own designated “Sanctuary” zones, the borders of which were heavily monitored, or in government custody. Mutants often served as janitors and basic needs staff in the detention centers where those who strayed on the wrong side of the law—which was pretty much anyone who ventured outside a Sanctuary—were housed. The VAC would never tolerate one of their operatives here. 

So, if Padalecki wanted to come, he would be careful to slip any tail or any electronic surveillance measures.

Of course, there was always the risk Padalecki could bring the full power of the VAC down on them and take out Jensen and every other mutant in the vicinity, but it would be a risk for Padalecki. How would he explain how he acquired the knowledge? Would he make up a source? Claim he manipulated another mutant into reaching out for Jensen? It was possible, but there were so many ways Padalecki's lies could come to the fore. If push came to shove, Jensen could take Padalecki down with him. 

So, while the location posed a risk, it was a calculated risk. 

Also, this neighborhood was somewhere Jensen could plausibly be without raising too much suspicion. The northwestern district that skirted the water’s edge, once home to Nordic immigrants, once a gentrified and snobbish place clashing in place against old-school, working-class maritime commerce, long since cementing itself as a place of stubborn individuality, was exactly the sort of place a lawyer purporting to have the sort of clientele as Jensen was supposed to have would actually go. 

So, his presence here was excusable and defensible should Padalecki chicken out and try to go halfway with this meeting. 

The clock ticked on and Jensen took in a spoonful of soup. It was good, more flavorful than anything he had made for himself from his supplies of mostly dried, freeze-dried, and frozen foods in the past many years. If Padalecki didn't show—or if he showed, but tried to arrest Jensen—at least he’d gotten a good (last) meal out of it. 

Time. The clock ticked over. Every passing second was a second late. Would he show? Would he come, but not reveal himself? Was Jensen wrong?

He scanned the street in front of him, both sides, watching the comings and goings of cars, and pedestrians, and bikes, and other transports, people giving each other a wide berth, as usual. He let his eyes sweep over the tiny, roped off former park with its clock tower that was now enthusiastically chiming the hour. Looked up the street that intersected as a “Y, where the old farmers market had once extended, with its former park barely visible. Across the street towards the old consignment shop that was still a consignment shop, although today that meant more a museum of historical oddities to which one bought selected timed tickets to ponder and gawk at the inane contraptions of an alien time long gone, instead of a store where second-hand goods were somehow purchased and used. 

No sign of anyone approaching him. No sign of Padalecki. 

He let himself shift in his seat, turning towards the old, brick-paved street and down the hill behind him, both the gently sloping stem of the “Y,” and the steep sweeping curve that joined it making a sort of disjointed “X.” But there was no one there, just a few pedestrians widely dispersed, and keeping well out of each other’s way, as one would expect. 

He turned back to look up the gentle hill past the clocktower to the left branch of the “Y,” but there was no one there. 

The clock had stopped chiming. Padalecki was officially late. Perhaps Jensen hadn't been clear enough? Or maybe he was truly losing his grasp on reality? Had he imagined it all? Come all this way out of a sense of guilt and imagined the person calling him was a VAC agent, because he was desperate to be caught and punished? He wanted to believe that wasn't the case, but then again, he was here, after all. Hi judgment was clearly compromised. 

Suppressing a frustrated sigh, and turned back to his food taking a large bite of the sandwich and chewing, as if that would make his frustration abate. 

“May I join you?” 

The voice was far too close, and Jensen looked up to see Agent Padalecki standing immediately in front of him, just on the far edge of the table, far too close for polite society. He hadn't approached from behind, Jensen would have heard him, and he certainly hadn't approached from either of the streets in front of Jensen. 

How in earth had he gotten there? There had been no pop or swish of teleportation abilities, and a teleporter would not have called Jensen to them. They would have teleport jumped as far as they could until they wore out, holed up, and continued on their way until they reached him. 

What the fuck had Padalecki done to appear out of nowhere? 

Still the question remained and he had not answered. “Ah, agent Padalecki, what brings you to this unconventional neck of the woods?” Whatever happened, Jensen would not be the one to break first. 

Padalecki blinked, looking ever so slightly confused. “I believe you summoned me here,” he admitted standing ever so awkwardly behind the chair. 

Jensen could hear the whir-whir, whir-whir of the automated server to his left, confused by Padalecki's behavior and uncertain if it should sound a warning about impermissible close contact or get a new menu for Padalecki. 

“Agent Padalecki, I am not sure what you are insinuating, but I am sure you will find, I, attorney Jensen Ackles, did not summon you, a member of the VAC, to this place.”

“Are you really going to make me say it?” Padalecki asked with a hint of incredulity. 

“I am quite certain I have absolutely no idea about the subject of your musings,” Jensen began, “but please sit,” he indicated the scene across from him, before you make a scene.”

Padalecki half-glared at him and pulled back the chair only to almost crumple into the seat. He gave the automated server almost a disdainful glare, when it rolled forward, but ordered a coffee and a cup of soup without looking at the menu, and seemed to breathe slightly easier the second it rolled away. 

“Perhaps we can go somewhere a little more, private?” Padalecki started, met Jensen's eye and noticed he was glaring, before changing tacks to explain. “Servers typically record conversations…”

Huh. So, Padalecki was concerned about being recorded after all. Jensen held up a hand. “Not these servers. You’ll also find there are no functioning surveillance drones in the area.” Jensen kept his voice quiet, nonchalant. He gave Padalecki a moment to let that sink in. “Once again, why are you, Agent Padalecki searching out, me, a Canadian attorney, in a place like this?”

Jensen waited as Padalecki fidgeted, and ever so slightly Jensen opened his telepathy, just a crack to get a hint of a read on what Padalecki was thinking. 

The answer was one word, Archangel, repeated over and over again. 

Still, Padalecki did not respond as the seconds ticked into one minute, two. Eventually the server came back, rolled up and dispensed Padalecki's food. 

Padalecki took the coffee cup in both hands after the server rolled away and took a long sip. It was the most casual behavior Jensen had seen from Padalecki.

After a second, long sip and a third, Padalecki set the cup down, his hand still cradling either side of it. “I reached out for Archangel, and you told me to meet you here.”

Jensen didn't react, just blinked slowly.

“I—I need your help. Archangel—there are… I have…” he stopped and started, took another long sip and tried again. “The missing mutants aren't missing. I'm hiding them. I have 2973 mutants concealed in Seattle and I need to get them out before I can’t stall the investigation anymore, or the trail I can't quite conceal inevitably leads back to me.”

“Did you say 2973?” Jensen asked.

Padalecki nodded between sips of coffee. 

Well, shit…

It was Jensen's turn to look around quickly, but there was no detectable surveillance anywhere to be found. “And they're all in Seattle?”

Padalecki nodded again. 

“And you want to get them out—out of PISA?”

Another nod.

“And you’re sure the VAC has no idea where they are?” Jensen added, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice. 

“Well, as sure as I can be, considering I've been hired to hunt myself, and, well you, among others,” Padalecki admitted.

“How?” 

Jensen couldn’t contain his disbelief. That many mutants in one place? Or one city anyway? Without VAC locating them? It went against everything they new, or at least everything they thought they knew in the wake of Haven. Maybe the VAC-controlled telepath, telepaths(?) were thrown off by the mutants who were supposed to be there? But that still didn't make sense. Unless the Mutants were all hiding in places there were already large clusters of mutants, like the restricted zone or one of the detention facilities? God, Jensen hoped Padalecki didn’t expect him to break 2973 mutants out of a secure PISA mutant holding facility. 

Padalecki didn't answer right away, just held his coffee cup in front of his face and stared Jensen in the eye. Then the coffee cup disappeared and Padalecki was smiling at him, a sad smile that held no joy only resignation. “I'm a reality warper.”

Jensen heard the words, but they didn't compute. Each word familiar, but together, nonsense. 

He kept staring at Padalecki, every second expecting him to smile, laugh, say it was a joke. Hell even whipping out his handcuffs and arresting Jensen would be welcome compared to the implications. 

But Padalecki didn’t laugh or blink or flinch or call it back. But between one heartbeat and the next, the cup reappeared, Padalecki took another sip, and set it down in front of him. 

Jensen responded by turning his attention to his food. And they both ate in silence for the next few minutes. 

Back in the 2020s, long before Jensen was born when the North American continent and world geopolitics looked very, very different, and the terms “variant” and “mutant” and a dozen others hadn't taken on any of their current colorations or connotations, there were stories about magicians, mirages, world-builders, or reality warpers—mutants who seemed to have the ability to change the world as they saw fit, or maybe just as they saw it Their powers weren’t limited to making people see things, they could make things be, not just seem, or as close too it as possible. A ten-year-old girl who always wanted to live on an island, and suddenly her family's home was on an island in the middle of an inland sea that had never before been observed or recorded. A seventeen-year-old boy whose mother had died, missed her so badly, suddenly she was alive again. She was there breathing, with a heartbeat, eating, laughing… even though her grave was still occupied. 

Some people thought it was cool. Others creepy, or sad. Some worried about the permanence and the practical implications—was that duplicate mother really there? Could she be licensed to drive? Would she blink out of existence while driving a car putting other lives at risk because her son changed his mind or accepted his mother was gone? But there were others who, from the very start, warned of the risk. Of all the mutants, these were the most dangerous, the most insidious. How could we trust anything we know with warpers in the world? Could you trust your own mind? Your own memory? How far did their power extend? What was to stop one from erasing someone from existence, or making themselves a god? What was to stop one from making the entire world a lie?

And then there had been cases coming forward… a father who killed his child and replaced the child with one he liked better… A politician who, apparently frustrated at his inability to pass particular legislation, simply willed the statutes to change… A teenager who made it so her bullies had never existed.

Reality warpers were one of the mutant classes who had driven mass hysteria and turned public sentiment on its head practically overnight. The world went from researching the causes of mutation and discussing practical ethical issues of how to adjust to the rapidly changing landscape of human variation, to legislating mutants as other. Nonhumans. Nonsapient. In some places non-living, or worse classified as a walking, talking macrovirus that was enemy number one. 

The numbers of reported reality warpers emerging dropped off. And in many places mutants with their suspected abilities or markings were rounded up and killed. There were rumors of parents suffocating mutant children in their sleep when the telltale symbol appeared—some to spare their children the pain and torture of losing everything and being executed, others because they feared their children more than the devil himself. 

There hadn't been any more warpers by the time Jensen was born. At least not new emergences. And certainly there were none left by the time he came into his powers. 

He could still remember the news broadcast from when he was seven? Eight, maybe? About the last known warper who died doing something terrible. She was a scientist, a microevolutionary biologist. And she had parents and a younger brother, and they had loved her, but they wanted her to use her scientific knowledge to figure out how to cure herself, how to make herself and others like her safe for the world. At first, she'd gone along with them, she'd agreed. Warpers' abilities caused more harm than good, and most were miserable, so the obvious solution was to find a way to neutralize the risk they posed so they could live safely among society. Or better yet, cure them, turn them back into him and without any powers. 

But she'd changed her mind, and she'd tried to make people love her and accept her as she was. But she didn't do it with words or persuasion or science, she just made it reality. It worked, on everyone but her little brother who kept detailed journals she didn't know about, and over time, he inoculated himself to her version of reality, reminding himself why she wasn't to be trusted what she really needed to do… The scientist kept trying and trying to keep reality and people’s perceptions of it on her side, but her brother fought back more and more. She eventually influenced much of the world, and sentiments against reality warpers seemed to flip again overnight, even though none had emerged in years. Until abruptly, her brother pushed so far and she pushed back so hard her mind snapped. She collapsed and soon died, and with her collapse snapped every single change to reality she had wrought. People's opinions returned to what they had been and many who had been sympathetic or indifferent were so horrified by the scope of her manipulation they came down firmly against mutants. 

New laws passed. People took to the streets. Governments cracked down. Mutants acted out, some of them not caring if their actions caught other mutants or sympathetic humans in the crossfire. The Central Coalition, which had outlawed mutants living there years before, released a bioweapon that reportedly killed every mutant and emerging mutant within their borders amd some of the mutants in neighboring countries. 

Things got much worse for everyone over night. And within a week, there were no more reality warpers. 

Or were there?

All that would have happened when Padalecki was three? Four? Years before he could have emerged as a mutant. 

But just because there were no more reality warpers didn't mean there were really no more. After all, they changed things or people's perception of it at least. Who was to say they couldn't have hidden themselves, masked their markings, changed their appearances, made themselves new people, faked their deaths? But if new warpers were born and emerged… could they do the same? On their own?

When he was in his teens and early twenties and studying—high school, college, law school—passing as human, but thinking, planning, imagining how he could help his fellow mutants, how use could use his gifts—or not—to make his life and the lives of other mutants more free, Jensen had often run thought experiments to test the integrity of his opinions and his ability to withstand challenge and cultivate reasoned, logical responses. He didn't want to be a hypocrite. He did want to make sure he understood his own opinions and his arguments so he was prepared for any argument thrown back at him. 

Every once in a while, when he was mapping his way through the inherent rights of every person, even if they later mutated, the nature of every mutant neutral and each individual a product of their genetics and lived experiences superimposed upon and interacting with each other—telepaths weren't inherently evil or dangerous, even though telepathy could be used for harmful or nefarious purposes, it could also be used for good or neutral purposes, and having telepathy did not make one inherently more or less dangerous than anyone else—his thoughts would meander to reality warpers. What about them? They had been mutants. But they were so powerful, they threatened the very nature of reality. How could they have equal rights and freedom when they could change the world without meaning to? Could Jensen defend them? If they were around, would he fight for them? And if not, what was his argument? Could he justify treating warpers differently without undermining his rights or the rights of other mutants? Was it _right_ to want to treat them differently?

In the end, he'd never made up his mind about how he felt. And he'd always wondered if he'd act differently if faced with a reality warper on his doorstep.

But in the end, it hadn't mattered because warpers were gone, and that made his theory and arguments moot. Or so he'd thought.

Jensen finished the last spoonful of soup and brought up the table's payment interface. He deposited electronic credits rather than paying with funds or credits linked to his name, or at least, to his persona, and sat back in his chair.

Padalecki had finished eating and was staring at him expectantly. 

Giving in to the urge to wipe his hand down his face in exhaustion or disbelief, Jensen sighed and stared steadfastly at Padalecki's hands. “I think we need to have this conversation somewhere much more private.”

“If you can trust me, I can take you somewhere we won't be noticed,” Padalecki answered, his voice quiet, even. 

Jensen nodded. “Okay,” it came out as a whisper. Then louder, “Okay.” He nodded again and pushed back his chair. 

Padalecki stood. “Follow me,” and set off across the street at the crook of the Y crossing all the way to the farthest side. 

Jensen followed, immediately wondering if he would regret this.

Assuming he lived to regret it.

~~~

**  
_FBI Housing Complex, Seattle, PISA, November 2070_   
**

Jensen watched as Agent Padalecki, Jared, seemed to shimmer and shift before him. One minute he was looking at the very human, straight-laced, by-the-book G man, and the next he was looking at a mutant. A _powerful_ mutant. 

Interlocking infinity symbols snaked their way around Jared’s arms and down the backs of his hands, the symbol, joined by a repeating, interconnected flourish that looked like threads or fibers interwoven into a swirling shape, peeked out of his collar and wended its way up his neck. Jared’s face was covered in more of the infinity and swirl pattern, although the markings were lighter there—considerably more noticeable than Jensen’s faint markings that framed his temples and extended down to his neck, but in a deep henna color rather than the blue-black of Jensen’s own markings that faded to the faintest of gray around his face.

Jared was _beautiful_. breathtaking.

Jensen found himself stammering, “how?” But he wasn’t sure what he planned to ask, so many questions came to mind.

“A few months before my twelfth birthday, I saw this documentary on ‘The Mutant Scourge,’” he said complete with air quotes, “and why it was such a threat to society, the greater good, human safety. There was all the usual speculation—it’s caused by a virus, or at least activated by one, which means its potentially contagious, it could mutate everyone and wipe out the human race. Mutants can’t be trusted. Look at this kid with telekinesis who threw a temper tantrum and tossed her teacher into oncoming traffic. Look at these spies who plucked state secrets out of president’s minds, and this mutant who was responsible for a nuke detonating in Venezuela. It was mutants who broke up the United States. Mutants who took kids hostage in Chicago and commanded the entire city government to commit suicide. Mutants are why the Central States are a fucking wasteland. Mutants are a disease, and they usually emerge in puberty, but not always, and here are the ways you spot a person who’s turning into a mutant, this is why it’s your duty as a good citizen to report them, to keep everyone safe.

“We’d just finished a unit on the holocaust in school—I went to one of the traditional historical schools in PISA, I tested in when I was seven, and it paved the way for my family to emigrate from Texas. And I just couldn’t get the image of children, families being rounded up into cattle cars out of my head. How a hundred years ago, some sick fuck had convinced a nation that other people were a scourge, inhuman, a taint, and they had to be wiped out, and how fear and paralysis and hatred played out until that sick fuck almost succeeded. The whole time, I was watching the documentary on mutants I couldn’t get the parallel out of my head. If that was wrong, why wasn’t this wrong? How come everyone could see that gassing babies because their parents had a different religion, but they couldn’t see that gassing teenagers who were a little different was wrong? Why did they insist on taking such a permanent option? Why were there still people talking about weaponizing and controlling mutants for the greater good? How could someone become not a person, when they weren’t like a fungus-sprouting zombie? 

“It kept me up at night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And at the same time, I kept thinking, ‘What if _I_ am a mutant? What if that’s me?’ By the next day it went from wondering about it, to worrying that I was one, to dreaming that I had markings. I started looking out for signs, following the steps on ‘how to detect a mutant’ even though the whole concept made me want to puke. And one day, I woke up, and I swore I could see these brownish infinity symbols on my hands. I spent three days obsessing, washing my hands constantly in case it was dirt that would rub off, pulling my sleeves down over my hands so no one would see. I wanted to look it up online, but I knew that was a bad idea, so I stuck to the hard copy, how-to-spot books they had in my school library. But the patterns I thought I was seeing didn’t look like anything on the pamphlet and they weren’t black or blue or white or green or orange like mutant markings were supposed to be. They looked like they could be freckles or moles, maybe a little on the darker side, but some skin tone my body could actually produce.

“I panicked. I just wanted to not be a mutant. I prayed that I wasn’t a mutant that what I saw was freckles or all in my head, because on the one hand, I realized I was okay with being a mutant, and that terrified me, because I was also terrified of what would happen to me if I was a mutant. I was so wound up I couldn’t sleep. There was no one I could talk to. My parents didn’t have citizenship yet, we had regular visits from Immigrant Affairs agents checking up on us, and making sure we were following all laws and constitutional mandates. And every good citizen of PISA knows their first duty is to support the state in keeping people safe and a big part of that was reporting muties. After two days of not sleeping, I finally got so tired, I just convinced myself I was winding myself up, and it wasn’t real, and it would go away if I just stopped being a hypochondriac. I just kind of… crashed. Slept for ten hours. And when I woke up the next morning, the markings were gone.”

Jensen watched as Jared’s appearance shifted again, this time all the markings disappeared, but his presence, his sense of being still felt mutant, not human. Then, slowly, the markings faded back into view.

“I thought that was it,” Jared continued. “I had a mutant scare, not even a true scare, more of an unsubstantiated freak out, as a twelve-ish-year-old, because of hype and attention, but I was fine. I was human. I counseled my friends on how not to freak out about possibly being a mutant. And I relaxed. My parents got citizenship, our family was happy, and I almost forgot about it. Until I was sixteen.

“Looking back, there were signs over the years. One year I asked for this specific sweater for my birthday. My mom got it, but in blue, and I really wanted it to be green. But the next day I realized it was green. My friend Tessa hated the haircut she got, because it came out choppy, and I told her it looked fine, and it did. It wasn’t choppy after all. I wanted the eleventh grade English syllabus to include _Maus_ even though it was on a list of books the school board had flagged as questionable. I just thought I was misremembering things, being… spacy?” Jared shrugged. “I was really good at convincing myself of whatever I wanted to be true, so I didn’t really think anything of it. Until my friend Vik freaked out one day because he had white leopard spots showing up on his wrists and the back of hands. We both knew what those were, I mean it sounded a lot like the markings for truthsayers, and we all knew they disappeared and were never heard from again.

“So Vik was freaking out, and I remembered the time I had freaked out as a kid, and told him it was just my imagination. Maybe it was psychosomatic or something, and if he relaxed and stopped obsessing over it, maybe it would go away. And I wanted t to go way. And when we were done talking, we couldn’t see the markings any more, and Vik went home to his family after soccer practice, and everything was good. 

“But the thing was, I knew what I saw, he had markings, and then he didn’t. I started to wonder, to think about how much I had wanted to not be a mutant, to not be _seen_. I remembered the thing with the sweater, and I took it out of my closet, and told myself I wanted to see it as it was. I must have looked at it for ten minutes until I felt like an idiot, but then it was blue, not green, even though I was looking at a photo of myself from my 16th birthday party where I was wearing it, and it was green. I wanted it to be green again, and it was. I just about flipped out. Actually fell off my bed, rocked on the ground. But I still wasn’t sure, so I plunked my ass down and sat in front of the full-length mirror on the inside of my closet door and I just sat there, looked at myself, and then closed my eyes. I was thinking, let me see things as they really are. Let me see me as I really am. Five minutes went by, then ten, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen. I was afraid to open my eyes, until I just got tired and decided to look.”

“And you saw yourself like this?” Jensen asked. 

Jared nodded. “Only I was a little too thorough, and while I was staring at myself, all my illusions broke. Vik’s family saw the markings on his hands, reported him. He fled. I never heard from him again. I have no idea if he got somewhere safe or if they caught him, killed him. That was _my_ fault because I was cavalier with my abilities and my identity, and I got so wrapped up in my own problems, I failed to protect someone I cared about, and put them in a worse situation than they would have been in had I done nothing. That—that changed everything. Before that, I was planning to intern at an animation studio, try my hand at some programming, maybe a little voice acting for local TV, see if it could branch into movies or games or something. After that, I realized I needed to know what I was, how I worked. So I tested myself, away from people, where I could do less damage. I pushed myself, tried to see if I could break. Could I change things too much and push myself so far, my illusions failed? What the hell did my markings mean? Was there anyone else like me? I studied mutant theory, history, and physiology in college under the guise of wanting to go into law enforcement. I graduated in three years and went right into a masters’ program. By the time I got out, I was two months shy of my twenty-third birthday, and the FBI was nocking on my door to recruit me.”

“So you went into Organized Crime?” Jared said somewhat incredulous. “After all that, you didn’t aim straight for VAC? Or are you Severus Snape or something? You always wanted the job, but kept getting turned down?”

“A Harry Potter joke, really?” Jared said, cracking a smile for the first time since they’d sat down. His features sobered. “I wanted to help mutants. I knew VAC was where the worst happened, and that meant if I was there, I’d either be exposed, sucked into the status quo, or have to flee really fast. One thing I learned in undergrad was that mutants are tied up like this,” he interwove his fingers together, “with cartels, gangs, traditional mafia enterprises. I figured that would give me the best chance to help mutants without exposing myself or fucking everything six ways from Sunday.” 

“And now?” Jensen asked, reaching out to brush one of the strands of hair that had fallen in Jared’s eyes out of the way, tucking it behind Jared’s ear.

“I took down the Kelana Cartel, and wiped out their entire mutant trafficking operation, wound up with 2973 refugees as a result. Jeff Morgan came knocking and tapped me to join VAC,” he frowned. “I’ve known for years Morgan is one of the most dangerous people in the world for mutants. I know he was behind the Haven raid, and there are rumors he keeps mutants as… pets. Slaves. People he’s altered somehow.” Jared shuddered. “When Jeff Morgan asks you to do something, you don’t say ‘no,’ not unless you really want to get on his radar. Not unless you want to die.”

“So, this is what, cat and mouse? Or does he trust you?” Jensen asked.

“That’s why I reached out to you. Why I gave myself an emergence. He’s onto the disappearance of mutants from raids. He’s suspicious because he’s figured out cartels dumping shipments doesn’t account for the sheer magnitude. Meanwhile I’ve got thousands of people I’m hiding with nowhere to go. And I can’t read Morgan. I’m not the best telepath, but I’m stronger than the average mutant,” Jared shrugged, “from what I can tell, it’s not like I’ve ever had a big mutant community to be a part of, even remotely. But Morgan is just impenetrable. I was hoping maybe you could help solve my problems, and give me an exit vector when my cover’s blown.”

Jensen couldn’t help but notice Jared had said “when” not “if.” He was wishing more and more Felicia had come with him. He trusted Jared, despite himself. He could read Jared’s thoughts, saw they aligned with what he was saying, but it wasn’t the same as having a truthsayer who could just _know_ , even if the person doing that talking wasn’t aware what they were saying was false. Not to mention the Voice would sure as hell come in handy for persuading his way into having a plausible solution that wouldn’t get absolutely everyone killed.

He had come to Seattle expecting to fall into a trap, believing it was his penance for not saving his people a decade ago. Now he was starting to think Jared’s intentions were genuine, if not pure, and there really were mutants to save. Almost as may mutants as had died at Haven. Maybe this was a chance at redemption, not a punishment.

But everything Jared had said about Director Morgan, and everything Jensen knew of the man in the past, made him wonder if he and Jared weren’t both slipping deeper and deeper into a trap. And if they were, would they recognize it before the trap sprung?

~~~

**  
_Later that Night_   
**

“So, now that I’ve spilled my soul and given you enough information to have me executed a thousand times over, how do I know you’re—well, Archangel, Starkiller, and not someone else, an imposter.”

Jensen cocked his head to the side, regarding Jared carefully. “What do you know about me? My abilities? I mean, as Archangel.”

“You’re supposed to be the most powerful telepath and telekinetic in the world. You can juggle asteroids, maybe fly, you lost part of your—“ Jared shut up, because Jensen had reached out and touched his arm. With his left hand, Jensen unbuttoned and pulled back the cuff of his right sleeve. He’d removed the makeup on his hand earlier to convince Jared of his mutant heritage.

Now, Jared could see the irregular scar, the places Jensen’s markings broke off and faded out, but broad expanse of not-quite-right skin. “I had good medical care,” Jensen said, his voice so quiet Jared had to strain to hear it. “But no one makes synthetic skin for mutants.”

Jared reached out and touched, jerking his hand back, when he made contact, as if his touch might pain Jensen.

“It’s okay, I don’t have any sensation in that part of my arm. Most of my forearm is synthetic,” he rolled his hand back and forth as Jared looked on.

Jared reached out again, hesitant, and touched Jensen’s right hand. 

“I can feel that,” Jensen admitted.

Jared swallowed hard. 

“Is there anything else I can do to earn your trust?” Jensen asked. “You called out to me. I heard you across the miles.”

“Telekinesis?” Jared asked, only, by the time he finished the word, the chair he was sitting on and every piece of furniture in the room was floating.

“And telepathy showed me what you would ask,” Jensen explained.

“Can you really fly?” Jared asked.

“Yes,” Jensen admitted, “but that’s a really easy way to get spotted.”

“If I know what you’re going to do,” Jared answered, “I can hide us, conceal us.”

Which was how Jared found himself levitated thirty feet above his roof, spinning slowly, as Jensen held his hand. No one seemed to notice, and Jared had never felt more alive, more _real_ in his own skin than he did at that moment.


	8. Chapter 8

**  
_VAC Headquarters, Director Morgan's Floor, November 2070_   
**

The process of getting into the VAC headquarters was much the same on Jensen's second visit, only this time, he anticipated Agent Newton's escort and the long, strange, trip through the skybridge. This time, when they got to the secure floors, the guards followed them into the elevator, and Newton directed them to the 40th floor.

"Figures," Jensen muttered under his breath.

"Director Morgan can be a little... predictable," Agent Newton agreed, overhearing Jensen. 

Jensen just smiled awkwardly.

When they exited the elevator they were above the cloud cover, which today was light, despite how far into November it was. The light, whispy clouds cast the world below in a surreal, eerie glow.

"Director Morgan has set aside this conference room for your use," Newton said, as she directed him inside a long conference room that looked out over the clouds on the water-facing side of the building.

"Thank you," Jensen said, as Agent Newton departed. Jensen turned back to the window, looked inside and realized he was not alone. Jared was seated at the far end of the table with three large print binders and two tablets spread in front of him. Jensen realized the giant conference table was mahogany, not smartglass, so the binders and tablets were in use to display the pictures. 

"Good morning, Mr. Ackles,” Jared answered. “Thank you for joining us today.”

“Good morning, Agent,” Jensen replied, catching himself at the last moment from using Jared’s given name. He was struck at how _human_ Jared appeared. Gone was any hint of the mutant he’d met last night. Jared’s impenetrable mask was pulled back in place.

“Please, have a seat, the director will join us shortly.”

Jensen nodded and meandered down the table towards Jensen’s end of the room, careful to keep a respectable distance away, but close enough so Jared could easily pass him the images. He knew better than to say anything potentially incriminating, but the urge was there on the tip of his tongue. But before he could do anything stupid, the door opened with an airy swish, and Director Morgan entered.

“Good morning, Mr. Ackles,” he reached out his hand, and this time, Jensen was prepared for the display of force. “Thank you for joining us today. Have you been able to gain any more information about your client’s relative’s appearance that might help us narrow down the images?”

Jensen swallowed. “My client offered me to share the relative is male, between the ages of 30 and 50, light skin, brown hair, brown eyes, just under two meters in height, with a muscular build.” Of course, that described Jared, but it also described a lot of over-six-foot-tall men, of which there were plenty in Seattle. 

“Well, let’s have Agent Padalecki sort that on the tablets—we have three hundred arrestees from the Kelana raid, so that should narrow it down a little—but these re the photos from the bank robberies. We only have two dozen identified suspects here.” 

Jared passed the binders to Morgan who placed them in front of Jensen, who began poring over the photos inside intently, while Jared tapped away on the tablet. 

Of course, now that Jensen had made contact with Jared, he no longer needed to look at these photos, but he kept up the ruse.

When Jensen had finished with the binders, confirming that unfortunately none of the people depicted was his client, the door opened again.

A tall, too-thin, pale-skinned woman with blonde hair backed into the room pulling a drinks trolley. 

“Ah, wonderful, my assistant Alaina is here to ply us with some refreshments,” Morgan said. 

The woman turned around and froze. Jensen found himself freezing too, involuntarily. He _knew_ her. Even though he was confident he had never met her before in his life, there they were, her memories, practically flying across the surface of her mind. He could see her memories—memories of _Jensen_ younger, happy, uninjured, laughing, giving her a tour, trying to get her to relax. There was a hint of melancholy in the memories that Jensen—the Jensen in her memories—hadn’t understood at the time, but Jensen understood now. 

At least he thought he did.

He looked at the woman’s hands. She was shaking now as she poured water in to glasses and placed them on frosted glass coasters. But she took a breath and steadied herself, and in a moment it was as if the whole scenario had never happened. 

Jensen had never seen anything like that, until Jared. Only, he was certain this woman, Alaina, was not a reality warper.

“Alaina is the only mutant the VAC has ever successfully cured,” Morgan said aloud. “After so many trials and errors, we had almost given up, when we devised a… task,” he said, almost savoring the word, “that seems to have burned out her skills. Ever since, she’s tested as a normal human, even if she does still have the markings.” Morgan picked up the glass of water Alaina had placed in front of him and took a long sip. “Of course, we cannot be certain the mutant abilities are truly gone, but so far, so good.”

Jensen caught Jared’s eye, then turned back to Alaina. He wasn’t familiar with the pattern, gold rays, that almost looked like clock hands were in patterns over her hands, face, neck, and probably much more. “If you don’t mind my asking, when she had powers, what were they? I am not familiar with her markings.”

To his surprise, it was Jared that answered. “She was a time turner,” Jared said, gesturing at the clock hands—same as our suspects in the bank robberies.” Jared looked from Jensen to Alaina to Morgan. “Although somehow I assume she was not _quite_ the same,” Jared added.

Morgan just gave a tight smile, and Jensen and Jared both accepted their drinks. 

Alaina bowed, turned back to her cart, and pushed it out of the room. Jensen had the distinct feeling he’d somehow been handed a missing puzzle piece, only he didn’t know what to do with it.

~~~

**  
_FBI Housing Community, November 2070_   
**

Jared leaned in, letting himself get lost in the feeling of safety that radiated from Jensen. He understood now, all of it. Why people followed Jensen, why they called him Archangel (even though Jensen mostly brushed it off and acted like it was ridiculous, and he should certainly be Starkiller instead, if he was going to have any code name at all). Jensen _understood_ people without trying. His innate, reflexive telepathy saw aspect of people they didn’t see in themselves, understood the heart of peoples hopes and fears, cut through the façade and accessed who they were underneath. He wasn’t intrusive about it, or presumptuous. He didn’t seek to share people’s intimate secrets or lord his knowledge over them. He just understood how to approach someone, and that, in turn, made everyone around him feel seen, recognized, safe.

Jensen’s hand slid up and caressed the small of Jared’s back, and Jared went for it, leaning in for a kiss. Their lips met, and for a split second everything was perfect, Jared’s undeveloped natural telepathy reached out and interacted with Jensen's. Their minds met, and Jared could see each other’s intent and agreement to what was happening. It was thrilling. His heart did a little swoop and loop-the-loop with how excited he was. But then it was like a wall of ice water cascaded between them and Jensen pulled back.

Jared blinked, confused. “I’m sorry, I—did I do something wrong? I thought your thoughts…” he trailed off, stepping back farther and running his hand through his hair at the base of his neck, ruffling it. “You know what, I’m sorry, that was totally out of line. I am not a trained telepath, and telepathy is not a substitute for consent and—”

Jensen cut him off with a finger pressed against Jared’s lips. “Just, just give me a second,” Jensen said, and Jared realized he was panting. “It’s not—it’s not that. You were right. Your telepathy works just fine. It’s not…” he trailed off again. Then sighed, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and looked up at Jared. “It’s been a really long time for me. Since I was close to anyone. Since I let myself get emotionally close.” He blinked and looked away. “Not since—”

His jaw dropped a little, involuntarily. Was Jensen saying what he thought he was saying? Jared couldn’t get any sort of read off him now. It was like the ice water had turned to a solid block of ice. “Are you saying you haven’t been with anyone since Haven fell?” Jared asked, because fuck, that was over ten years. No wonder Jensen was pulling away. Dismay filled Jared as he tried to figure out why. “This isn’t because of your arm, is it? Because—”

“No Jared,” Jensen retorted, this time his tone was actually icy and annoyed. “It’s not because of my arm or my hearing or anything like that. For the past decade, mutants the world over, but especially those of us who survived Haven, have been afraid, convinced that being near each other, gathering in a group, even families living together, would boost our telepathic profile and send VAC to our door, guns blazing, game over, no more mutants. I pulled away from everyone I know. We all did. We all have been living in isolation. Felicia is my best and oldest friend in the world, and I haven’t seen her through anything other than a video screen since the day I got out of the hospital six months after the bombing.” He looked away.

Now, Jared could feel the hurt radiating from Jensen. It was so strong it was bleeding out around the walls Jensen had put up between them. But Jared got the sense Jensen was doing that intentionally. Jared had no doubt Jensen could block him, or anyone, out entirely if he wanted to. There was a reason people were able to cry out in their sleep from thousands of miles away and have Jensen hear it. He had a degree of mental and telepathic control that was mindboggling, even to other mutants. He felt guilty, so guilty. “I’m sorry…” He cringed, wondering if his words sounded as week as they felt.

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “It’s not your fault. This isn’t on you. Yes, a part of me is jealous that you can just hide and make things seem and effectively _be_ the way you want them to be, maybe the way we wish they all were. But you’re not all-powerful. Reality warpers aren’t the misguided gods people made them out to be.”

“Thanks for noticing,” Jared said, cracking a smile.

“But it’s more than that,” Jensen said. “We just—over the years, people have wondered aloud— _I_ have wondered aloud whether we were right. Was it really our telepathy? Even if they had a telepath when they took out Haven, did the VAC _still_ have a telepath? Did they have more? Less? How come we never felt a telepath reaching for us?” He shrugged, sniffed. “We knew there were all sorts of explanations that would work. Reasons why that would be true, but we couldn’t prove we had been found by VAC-aligned telepaths and we couldn’t dismiss it. And we were all too damn fucking terrified to do anything that would test the hypothesis!” His voice rose until it was coming out as a shout. He took another heaving sigh, and continued, voice much softer. “I’m not angry with you. Or jealous. I’m angry with myself for letting my fear keep me locked away for a decade. For shutting out people who needed me, for letting VAC use insinuation and rumor, to use our own imaginations, against us. To make us believe maybe mutants are really all a little evil at our cores, and of course we would help hunt our own kind. I’m mourning the decade of lost time with friends with no contact, Jared. I know people haven’t exactly been free with human contact in the last 50 years, but a lot of people find someone, have someone they can be with, see, touch. But I’ve had no one. We’ve had no one. And it was my fault for buying into the false narrative.”

Jared cocked his head to the side regarding Jensen as the new information colored his own perceptions in a new light. “To be fair, we don’t know for sure Morgan didn’t have a mutant under his thumb or on his payroll ten years ago,” he said, reaching out to see if Jensen would accept his touch. “And it wasn’t your fault.” To Jared’s surprise, Jensen leaned into the touch, and Jared felt the wall between their minds crack a little bit, again, it felt deliberate, not out of control, but regardless, he felt a new emotion peeking through along with images of people smiling, images that seemed to include Morgan’s assistant. “You—you figured something out.”

Jensen shook his head. “Not figured out, more like, suspect?” He shrugged, but it turned into a shudder. “I—there are too many implications, I don’t know what to make of it if I’m right.” 

“You’ll figure it out,” Jared said, and he believed it implicitly. He was certain Jensen would understand what had enabled VAC to kill so many mutants so they could be safe, or at least _safer_ , have a real future. As he spoke, he let his hand slide up Jensen’s right arm and around his shoulder, pulling him close. This time, when their lips met, Jensen’s opened, and he kissed back. This time they lost themselves in closeness, togetherness for minutes, each tick of the clock relaxing Jensen further, leaving Jared more in awe of his good fortune. When he first reached out for Archangel all those months ago he doubted his pleas would be answered. He certainly never thought he’d find someone with whom he belonged. He could get used to this. Being a part of something rather than always on the outside, pretending to fit in, always fearing discovery.

As the minutes stretched on and their kisses became more heated, Jared rucking Jensen’s shirt up above his ribs, admiring the mix of symbols that played out in intricate patterns across his torso, Jensen pulled back again, putting his hands up against Jared’s now naked chest. Somewhere in their rather epic makeout session Jared had lost his shirt. 

“What—” Jared started, but Jensen cut him off again, with a quick peck of the lips.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m completely okay with this,” Jensen said gesturing between them. “In fact, if this is headed to the bedroom, or at least to sex right here, I am one hundred percent on board. I just want to make sure…” he trailed off. 

Jared gave him time to collect his thoughts. 

“Before we go farther, there’s still—” He cut himself off again. “I just mean. Damnit I haven’t done this in a million years.”

“You could probably just think at me, and I’d understand,” Jared suggested.

“No,” Jensen shook his head. “I need to actually find words to articulate this. That’s kind of part of the issue.” He took another deep breath. “You came to me for help. Helping people, people who are in really desperate situations without a lot of agency or resources or options get out of those situations and into better situations is kind of what I do. At least, it’s what I used to do, and it’s what you’ve asked me to do here. That—it puts me in a position where I have the advantage, power over you, and I don’t want a relationship that’s uneven. I—”

“Stop,” Jared held up a hand. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly helpless. And I’m pretty sure Sterling and Brianna and Yadira would be pretty fucking offended if you or I came in there and acted like a savior. We just need help. We’ve got skills, powers, ideas, we just don’t know how to get across the border and we know for damn sure we’re not going to get anywhere close to 3000 people out of here. Some of the mutants that worked for the Kelanas were abused, kept as slaves, fucked up in all sorts of ways and are at a disadvantage, but the rest of them… They were smuggling themselves out of here to better places, better lives, and my grand better-me-than-someone-else plan threw a grenade in the middle of their carefully planned escape. And now we’re all stuck here together, and I need you. But you’re not all-powerful magic on your own, you know. I’d say you need us. You need me, to help you find yourself, what you’d lost, to help us all get to the bottom of how they murdered so many of us ten years ago. I’d say that makes us equals, partners.” Jared sighs. “I want this. If you want this, please take it—you get to have your own life too, Jensen.”

This time Jensen initiated the kiss. Jared felt a subtle tug around him as Jensen reached out with telekinesis and gently lifted him off his feet. 

“I think I can find our way to the bedroom,” Jensen murmured.

Jared smiled and laughed despite himself. In all his wildest dreams, he had never imagined this. Whatever else happened, he was so, so happy to have this time with Jensen. He felt the most like himself as he had felt in years.

Jared was still thrumming with the sort of joy he hadn’t known was possible when he helped Jensen conceal his escape from Jared’s home early the next morning. They had a long road ahead, but maybe at the end of it, there was a real future waiting for Jared.

~~~

Jensen had snuck back to Jared’s complex twice more, and he’d been called back to the VAC to look at creepy crime scene photos one more time. Luckily, there were so many of them, even after two trips, Jensen hadn’t seen nearly all of the photos, so he didn’t even have to stall.

But in all that, Jared still had not introduced Jensen to these hidden mutants, revealed where they were hidden, or discussed how they might go about an escape, which considering Jensen’s whole reason for being in PISA was answering Jared’s call, was getting a little frustrating.

He needn’t have feared. 

Jensen wasn’t sure what he was expecting when Jared said it was time to meet the mutants; it certainly was not this. 

After a circuitous route on foot that took over an hour, two autocab rides in different directions separated by another half-hour stint of walking, and finally, another stint of walking that took them down into one of the underground link stations and used the network of passage ways to emerge about five blocks away without being detected by surface-dwelling drones, they crept along the edge of the buildings on one of the blacked-out streets until they came to the loading dock of a partially completed office tower. “They’re here? Isn’t this where—” Jensen started, but Jared just pressed a finger to his lips and led Jensen inside.

Jensen followed Jared through deserted back hallways, lined with remnants of ancient cardboard, and past the building’s intended lobby—which still had plain white marble paneling on several of the walls, a cracked, frosted glass reception desk, and bits of chrome trim here and there, everything else having long since been picked away by scavengers or damaged by squatters over the last half-century—to a smaller bank of elevators at the far side of the building. There was a firefighter’s key in the lock, and when Jared turned it, the elevator doors slid open. “Not the freight elevator?” Jensen asked once they were inside.

“Too obvious,” Jared answered. “The Kelana’s were actually pretty good with operational security. That’s why it took so long to catch their leadership. This elevator is concealed, but still accessible, and large enough to transfer large amounts of people and cargo with a good weight capacity. Since they’re not worried about protecting the cosmetics, it was a good fit.”

The elevator jumped a little bit as it slowed to a halt on the 38th floor. Before the door open, Jensen said, “This is the building where the raid took place.”

“Yes,” Jared confirmed.

“So, what, you hid everyone in place, and they’ve just been staying here ever since?” Jensen asked incredulous.

“Not quite,” a voice called from the other side of the door as the doors opened.

Jensen looked up and out, surprised the floor was pleasantly lit. The building had looked absolutely dark and deserted from the outside. 

Jared chuckled lightly, “Jensen Ackles, meet Sterling Brown,” he said indicating the fairly tall, dark-skinned man in UCLA Law sweatpants and a black t-shirt. “He’s also a lawyer, and he managed to evade VAC all the way from Los Angeles, until I fucked up his carefully planned escape by busting the Kelanas.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Sterling held out his hand, and shook Jensen’s. “No, I’m only a middling telepath, barely more than mutant baseline, but I am a telekinetic—not quite on your scale, but enough to throw off VAC and leave them licking their wounds.” 

“Pleasure,” Jensen answered, thrown by the sheer number of people he was seeing in the mostly open space around him that took up more than half of a city block. 

“Jensen, this is Briana,” Jared directed Jensen’s attention to a blonde woman who was standing next to Sterling. 

“Hi,” Jensen offered somewhat dumfounded. 

“And unlike Sterling, I am a telepath,” Briana started, _Which you can absolutely tell seeing as how you’re listening to me in your head right now. Huh, it really is you. I had my doubts, but thank you. Thank you for coming out of hiding for this, for us._

Briana’s thoughts flicked through his mind rapid fire. In them he saw memories of friends long gone—Kim, Rob, Richard, Samantha, Jim—others he knew were still out there, but in hiding, and many of them barely hanging on to life—Courtney, DJ, Steven, Tahmoh… “You were at Haven,” he said aloud. He didn’t add, “and you don’t blame me,” but he knew Briana heard it.

 _Never did. Never could. It wasn’t your fault. Jim made you get out because he knew one day we’d need you, and we do._ Briana’s words had the weight of truth, or as close to it as Jensen could feel without being a truthsayer.

“Briana was doing border runs when she got pinched by a dirty UC from Nevada,” Jared explained.

“They weren’t border runs, not really. I just do a circuit through the Freehold and help out any Mutants I find there, if any are thinking of heading to Canada, I give directions, take some of them across the border with me, help them get settled or find resources. I ran across a cop from Nevada who posed as a local, got the drop on me before I read him, and smuggled me across the border in his trunk with the idea of using me as part of his personal mutant slave brothel. That did _not_ end well for him, and I managed to get out with about a half dozen others, most of whom made it here.”

“And this is Yadira,” Jared said, indicating a petite, thin, but so _powerful_ woman standing on Briana’s other side. 

“Is it true you can pull an asteroid out of the sky?” she challenged. 

“Yeah, but I have no desire to leave this planet a lifeless rock,” Jensen said warily.

Yadira smiled, but didn’t offer her hand. Instead she jumped forward in a blink, and then was behind Jensen.

“You’re a teleporter,” Jensen realized. A gust of wind swept through the floor. “And an air elemental. And you’re all good at hiding your markings?” he asked, because none of the three were visibly mutants.

“No, that’s all Jared,” Sterling answered as Yadira teleported back so she was facing Jensen and Jared.

“Sterling, Briana, and Yadira have been helping me keep everyone alive, mostly sane, fed, and hopeful ever since I interrupted their escape,” Jared offered.

“And in exchange, Jared has been masking our markings so when we go out in public for food or supplies we don’t get made as mutants when we have to interact with people,” Sterling finished.

“The rest of the time people mostly ignore us, like some sort of notice-me-not charm from Harry Potter or—” 

“Or part of the Tardis,” Jensen completed for her.

“Either way, while we may be a bit frustrated our escape was delayed, Jared’s timely intervention managed to keep almost 3000 of us from getting swept up into either VAC labs, prisons, or executed. We’ve got this floor and the three above it set up as best we can, and we’ve been planning for five months, but we just don’t have the combined resources and powers to move this many people across the border on our own,” Sterling explained.

“You can’t hide them?” Jensen asked.

“No, we tried but it’s too many people to move, too many things to keep hidden, if I try to keep everyone from colliding with people who can’t see them—I’m afraid it would either kill me, or permanently erase everyone from reality,” Jared admitted.

“We tried things, his markings started to show whenever he concealed more than 100 of us at a time—we might manage a few trips, but not like 30 of them,” Yadira explained. “So, what did you do? How did you get people out?”

And this was the moment, after all this, did Jensen trust Jared, did he trust everyone here? If it was just Jared, he wanted to think at this point he believed Jared had endangered himself enough for Jensen to trust him. But this—there were so many people. If one of them was a mole, or got pinched and talked to try to save themselves… But what real choice was there? If he _didn’t_ share what he knew, what hope did any of them have?

So he told them, about Felicia working with him—he would read people to determine the people who would help, or could be persuaded; she would truthsay the information they learned and then command the people they needed to look the other way. But they’d never taken more than a few dozen at a time, one rail car occupied and Felicia would command the customs inspectors to look the other way. It wouldn’t work with this many people—but with a warper, several telekinetics and telepaths, a teleporter, and—if he and Jared had both read Kathryn correctly, an electrokinetic. They might be able to make it work. Create a big enough distraction, maybe if they all got on a train, Jared could hide the train, Kathryn could hack the controls, and Felicia could do her thing. But that was it, they needed Felicia. There were no other trusthsayers among the 2973, and there was no way they were pulling this off if they couldn’t force a few people here or there to do what they wanted.

Jensen just hoped Felicia had been serious when she said she was making her way to Seattle. If not, she wouldn’t get there for at least a few days, and something told him they didn’t have that much time.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are concerned about graphic violence or other content, please read the warnings in the notes at the end of this chapter.

**_VAC Headquarters, Seattle, PISA, Late November 2070_ **  


“Come with me,” Kathryn said in Jared’s ear, as she slipped her hand over his, and led him back to the far end of the floor.

“Newton, I’m in the middle of something,” Jared protested, but Kathryn just squeezed his hand harder, a combination of the pressure and her mental state giving Jared a small shock.

“I’m sorry, this is time-sensitive, and I need to show you right away,” she said, eerily calm, as they walked. She pulled him past the elevators, past the analysis labs, around the corner, and to a narrow door, which she opened with a well-placed kick of her foot. It was a crowded supply closet, Jared realized, and he started to protest about how it would look, but Kathryn’s death grip shut him up again.

Once inside, Kathryn almost collapsed into the door. “Blind spot,” she said, panting as if she’d been holding her breath. Maybe she had been.

Jared stared to speak, but Kathryn squeezed his hand again, and held it up in front of them.

“Your marks are showing,” she hissed.

“What?” Jared asked, genuinely not parsing the comment, so tired was he with brainstorming escape plans, and hoping Felicia Day, the VAC’s number 2 most wanted criminal joined the number 1 most wanted with whom Jared was sharing his bed and—

“Jared, marks. I know what they mean, I know you’re a warper, figured it out the first time you masked one I missed, but you are slipping, and you need to rein It in. If this is showing, what else is showing?”

Jared just looked down at his hand, up at Kathryn, down at his hand… it didn’t compute. “You knew?” he breathed.

“Not the point,” Kathryn said, dropping his hand and shocking him again. “Here, we’ll do it my way,” and without further ado she raised her hand and aimed a well-controlled laser at the back of Jared’s hand and wrist, moving her hand back and forth until all the markings were gone.

“Did anyone see?” Jared hissed. 

“I don’t know, but you and your boyfriend had better get your damn warehouse of refuges clear before we all wind up on the literal chopping block.

Jared blinked again.

“We’re all telepaths to one degree or another, it’s all about knowing how far you can skim without setting off the alarms…” Kathryn explained.

“Okay, okay,” Jared breathed. “I should—take the afternoon.”

“No, you should go back to your desk so Morgan doesn’t sick one of the creepy ex-British ninja assassins in group three on your ass to take you out.

Jared kept taking deep breaths until finally he could feel his heartrate come under control. Then he focused on feeling his illusions. The 2973 were still hidden, now he just needed to hide himself. It took longer than he would have liked, but after five minutes, and a quick inspection from Kathryn, it was under control. 

While Jared tried to get a handle on his illusions, Kathryn pilfered the supply closet and handed him a basket of carefully selected office supplies to take back to their suite.

Everything seemed okay when they returned, but he wasn’t sure how he would tell if it was wrong.

~~~

**  
_Abandoned Office Tower, Seattle, PISA, Later that Night_   
**

It was Jensen’s third trip to meet with the refugees, but the first time he had come alone. He was supposed to go back to the VAC offices for more photo lineups tomorrow, but he hadn’t spoken to Jared all day, and in the five seconds since Jared had arrived, Jensen knew something was wrong. 

Jared was practically jumpy and he kept glancing at his wrist. 

Jensen was about to ask what was wrong, maybe let his mind brush against Jared’s, when the sound of shattering glass and splintering plywood jerked him out of his thoughts.

“This is the Variant Affairs Commission, freeze and put your hands up!” Director Morgan’s voice called out, artificially amplified, as he and Kathryn stepped into view, flanked by Agent Sheppard, all of Teams Two and Three, and a two full strike teams.

“J—what?” Jensen said, jaw dropping in shock as his eyes went wide with betrayal.

Jared was shaking his head slightly and looking at his hands. What? Had Jensen misread him all this time? Did Jared think Jensen wouldn’t give away his secret to sell himself… or was Jared trying to play it cool because, well, even if Jensen got caught, there were still 2973 mutants to get out of PISA or die trying.

“Sir, Mr. Ackles led me here this evening without prior knowledge of where we were going. He said he had information about the mutant he was looking for, and it was here,” Jared said hastily. “Director, if I had any idea he was taking me to a crime scene, I would have reported it and called in for backup. I don’t know what he was going to show me—that was when you arrived.”

“Lucky for you, Agent, I was going to see how fast you could fly, without a parachute,” Jensen sneered, only half faking the anger. He couldn’t read Jared, and this was exactly the situation Felicia had warned him was the goal all along. VAC wanted Archangel’s head on a pike, and they were going to get it. Sure, he could use his powers, even fly himself off the building, but they were on the reinforced 37th floor and he was surrounded. He could try but—

A bolt of lightning struck Jensen somewhere just below his heart, making it stutter, stop, and restart at an uneven beat. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and the hearing in his good ear was fading in and out. He was still standing though, and Agent Sheppard closed the distance between them, and grabbed Jensen’s right arm, sliding up the sleeve and rubbing furiously at the skin until Jensen’s markings started to appear. Thanks to the electric stun bolt in the chest, he couldn’t access his telekinesis, and the friction was enough to take the makeup off. 

“Saw tooth and key pattern on the right forearm interrupted where all the skin has been replaced by a human biosynth skin graft,” Sheppard said, then holding up a scanner—much like the ones the customs agents had used what felt like a million years ago. “Most of the forearm is artificial synth replacement,” he ran the scanner over Jensen’s head, “Multiple healed skull fractures, orbital bone fracture, auditory nerve on the right is absent, signs of prior traumatic brain injury.”

Jensen was getting all of this through his good ear, the volume rising and falling with his heartbeat. His lungs still weren’t responding, and the stunbolt was still attached, shocking from time to time making his heart beat more and more erratically. 

“Sir, with this degree of prior CNS damage, his lungs will not respond without assistance, and cannot function as long as the stunbolt’s attached,” Agent Sheppard sounded almost bored. He looked over at Morgan, who was regarding Jensen as if he was something scraped off the bottom of his shoe. 

“We need an audience,” Morgan said at last.

Sheppard moved to remove the stun bolt.

“Leave that alone,” he’s too powerful with it removed. We need to keep him incapacitated,” Morgan paused, contemplative, then proceeded. “Stick a transdermal perfuser on him, it will keep him viable until we get to the holding cells.”

As Jensen’s vision blacked out and he lost his grip on consciousness, he felt something sharp stick to the side of his neck.

~~~

The surface he was lying on was hard, cold, and unyielding. His chest ached and throbbed with the pain of broken ribs, and the burn of electrocution, although, he was pleased to note, the stunbolt was no longer attached. His head throbbed, and the vision in his right eye was completely uncooperative. His right side was numb, immobile as it had been during the attack on haven, and he could feel something crusty on his neck.

“Ah, you’re awake, I wasn’t sure if we caught it in time,” Morgan’s voice filtered into his good ear, and Jensen managed to track his cooperative eye on Morgan, and pull himself to something like a sitting position. 

It was really more of a slump against the door of the cell. 

Right. Cells. He was in a mutant dampening cell on one of the secure floors of the VAC offices, probably somewhere between the reception lobby and Morgan’s private penthouse office. 

“I’m afraid, Sheppard was right, your prior CNS damage was far more extensive than I realized. The transdermal perfusor managed to oxygenate your blood, but then you had a stroke, followed by a cardiac arrest, and we tried to stop and reverse the stroke as soon as we realized what was happening, but I’m afraid you’ll find your old hemiparesis is back. And then we had trouble getting your heart started again. The broken ribs will indeed hurt, but well,” Morgan shrugged, “It seems foolish to bring someone back just to execute them, but given the extent of your crimes against the state, against the world, it was very necessary in this context.”

The cell door slid open, providing a gap in the antimutant Faraday cage. Jensen’s telekinesis was still completely unresponsive, but he gleaned a little bit of information from the minds around the room. Nothing all that surprising, his arrest had already been announced, and his execution was scheduled for the next day at noon.

The door closed again, but this time an unfamiliar medic was in the room. “Mr. Smith here will be treating you to see if we can’t claw back some motor function so you can walk to your execution tomorrow.” 

Jensen lost time again. He still couldn’t speak and his hearing kept tuning out. 

When he regained consciousness hours later, it was dark. He could see now, out of his right eye, and he realized the problem was the pupil was completely blown and unresponsive. 

“Hey, Jensen, are you still with me?” I was Jared’s voice, and he was somewhere close—the other side of the cell door. 

“I came back to get you out,” Jared was saying, he reached out to punch in the code, to open the cell door, but as he did so, the lights flicked on and Jensen was left half-blind again.

“So, predictable, Padalecki, and look, your markings are showing, _again_ ,” Morgan said sarcastically as he stepped into view. 

Alaina, the too-thin, ex-mutant assistant, stepped up beside him and froze, taking in the scene. 

“See, in addition to burning out her powers after she rewound a day so we could bomb Haven—you had figured that out, right?”

Jensen nodded, although even with additional treatment, it was still difficult to move anything. 

“Well one of you got it, seriously Jared, I had higher hopes for you, but for all your power, you’re such a sadly linear thinker,” Morgan monologued. “Anyway, Alaina here has been well trained in loyalty. She also has a camera installed in her left contact, so she can snap pictures like these,” he held up a tablet showing a corner of the key design sticking out from Jensen’s right sleeve, “Or these,” he said, flicking to a photo of Jared’s hands, infinity symbol prominently displayed on the back of his right hand.

“When did you know?” Jared asked, his voice, tight and gravely, like he wanted to scream and was holding back tears at the same time.

“Oh I suspected, the moment you set foot in the academy. I knew for sure the day you vanished a mutant from my peripheral vision in the process of taking down the Kelana cartel,” Morgan answered.

Jensen watched the fight go out of Jared, his hand slack against his side, defeat written in every molecule of his body.

Sheppard shot Jared with a stun round, and Jensen lost time again.

~~~

When he regained consciousness the third time, Jensen was locked up in the cell next to him, and Morgan was talking to him.

The light was lower again, and the pressure in Jensen’s bladder told him several hours had passed. 

“You see, my sister was like you,” Morgan explained, talking to Jared.

“She was the scientist,” Jensen managed to slur.

“Oh he’s awake again, and just in time to attend his execution,” Morgan laughed at him. “Yes, she was the scientist, who wanted to make people, good honest people, love mutants, when mutants wouldn’t allow themselves to be controlled. Your kind took a world on the brink and shoved it over the edge. My sister wanted to keep it there. All I’ve ever wanted to do was stop you so that order can be restored. You’re not natural; none of you should even exist.”

“Fuck you!” Jared retorted, and started to turn, but the report of a gun firing in an enclosed space, rang out before he could say any more. Jared glanced down briefly at the blossoming red lake that had once been his chest, staggered two steps, and dropped like a puppet with his springs cut, flopping on the floor of his cell.

Jensen looked on in horror. 

“Sheppard, please oversee his containment,” Morgan said as he opened the cell door, “get him on the heart lung bypass, so we can keep his brain viable for testing,” Morgan turned back to Jensen as Jared’s corpse, or near-corpse was loaded on a gurney and wheeled a way. “After my sister died, all of his kind went into hiding. We have decades of research to make up for, and this way, his invaluable neurochemistry is preserved, and his body is otherwise, dead, so there’s no risk of him getting away, or committing suicide. Win-win,” Morgan said. He swiped his card to open Jared’s cell door, punched in the code, and stepped inside. “Do you understand what’s going to happen now?”

“Fuck… you,” Jared wheezed, his heart was beating too fast, not pumping enough blood, and his vision was graying out again. The rage and disgust coursing through him was enough to make Morgan’s head explode, if he’d had full use of his powers. Something zapped in his chest, and then his heart slowed down.

“While you were out, I also took the liberty of installing a pacemaker. You are positively a mess, and I can’t have a fun arrhythmia kill you before we get our closure,” Morgan said, grabbing Jared by the upper arm and lifting him to his feet.

Morgan had at least 50 pounds of muscle and a larger frame on Jensen, and he maneuvered him as if he weighed nothing. 

“We are headed to old City Hall where the guillotine has been set up.” 

As soon as they moved outside the cage, Jensen’s telepathy came back to him. “My execution is in twenty minutes,” Jensen realized.

Morgan nodded, and yanked him into the elevator, “And twenty minutes after that, the building where all those precious mutants are trapped, will explode. Two bombs, just like Haven, only this time, we’ve made damn sure both of the primaries will detonate. No survivors.” 

The rest of the forced march through the building, into an armored transport, and out onto the executioner’s platform was occupied with Morgan’s ranting. How Alaina had identified Jensen immediately as archangel, how one of the reasons they’d made sure to time her journey to haven for when Felicia was gone was both so Felecia wouldn’t identify the truth of her visit, but also so Felicia couldn’t command Alaina not to reveal everyone’s identities. Only they came to find out, Jensen didn’t identify himself to the new residents as anything other than “Archangel,” and she didn’t have an implanted camera at that point, so they’d had very little to go on.

Morgan ranted some more about his sister, and how dangerous mutants were, particularly warpers. He never believed his sister’s illusions, he understood what a threat mutants were in the world reading minds, robbing banks, having advantages that set them apart from the rest of the population and meant no playing field would ever be level. Mutant’s gravitated towards crime and deceit, and worse, evidence showed mutation was caused at least in part, by a virus. Quite literally mutants were a disease, and as long as there were mutants who would try to hide and deceive among the good humans, they needed to be stamped out. He started out by trying to cure his sister, but that didn’t work. She died. But he didn’t stop there.

Jensen just tuned him out. He didn’t see the booing crowd gathered before him, he didn’t feel the minds of those who were crying out for help, for mercy. He didn’t even see the ground in front of him as he was positioned for the executioner. All he saw was Jared’s lifeless body. His shock at the hole where his heart had been. And then the blade fell and Jensen knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings for execution, murder, graphic violence, nonconsensual medical procedures, racist villain monologuing, and temporary main character deaths.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Apartment of Kathryn Newton, Seattle, PISA, Late November 2070_ **

Kathryn had been pacing her apartment for an hour, oscillating between terror, rage, and hopelessness. While her telepathy was only a little stronger than average, not strong enough for telepathy markings to mark her skin along side her electrokinetics pattern, the facility she had with communications systems thanks to the electrokinesis, acted like an amplifier for the telepathy she did have.

She felt Jared die. The gunshot so abrupt it knocked her on her ass. She felt Jensen shutdown after that, felt the way everything on Earth was vibrating just a little bit off kilter from the moment of Jared’s death, until the guillotine fell, and then everything just, relaxed, gave in. The vibrations stopped and the Earth was unnaturally still. 

Kathryn, on the other hand was bent over her toilet, emptying the contents of her stomach for the third time. Every time she thought she might stop, the feel of that unnatural _release_ swept over her again, and the puking started anew.

She was running out of time. No, she was already long out of time. If Morgan knew about Jensen and Jared, he certainly knew about her, had probably always known about her. Her ascent to the VAC made so much more sense—it hadn’t been her merit or hard work and achievements that got her the fast track. No, that was meaningless to Morgan for someone like Kathryn. He just wanted her contained, controlled, and in his inner circle was the easiest way to do it. 

_She’d been a fool._

And now she was dead. Her life was over, her heart just hadn’t figured out to stop beating yet. 

Therein lay the conundrum. Should she run—see how far she could get, take some of them with her on the way out? Stay, play like she was human and see how long Morgan let her live? Try to rescue the others—she let that one go almost immediately, because Morgan had the building surrounded last night, and Kathryn, could hack electronics, not people, so that was doomed from the start.

Or should she just end it now? The .45 was heavy in her hands, but it was the only way. Kathryn didn’t want to take the coward’s way out, the easy way, but she couldn’t—she could feel the echoes of Jared’s agony from across the city. His artificially reanimated mind screaming out as it was vivisected. Jared had been made since he couldn’t die. 

Kathryn knew she was nowhere near as enticing to Morgan and his ilk as a rare reality warper like Jared, but she couldn’t take the chance Morgan would deny her the peace of death.

The explosion was so powerful, it knocked Kathryn to her knees. The TV, which was already on in the background, recapping Jensen’s execution over and over again, switched to shots of a giant plume of dust in downtown where the tower had been, where the mutants had been. 2973 lives gone in an instant. And they were blaming Jensen, saying the blast killed Jared too. 

And of course, Morgan _had_ sacrificed some of his own—to make the cover story more plausible. It wouldn’t sell well as a terrorist attack if every VAC agent and LEO in the city was nowhere to be found when the building was supposed to be a high value target. 

The fact that she was not dead yet was perhaps the most alarming situation. Well, her and Felicia. Somewhere out there, there was a good chance Felicia would be next. Did she even know what had happened? 

She gripped the .45 a little tighter and raised it to her temple. There was a bang on the door, and it burst inwards, reflex and training had Kathryn turning the gun on the intruder…

“Alaina?” She asked dumbfounded.

“No time to explain, you need to listen. Only Alaina didn’t speak, she grabbed Kathryn by both wrists and squeezed.

Memories flashed through her mind rapid fire. Morgan planning the assault on Haven, grooming Alaina, brainwashing her to believe she was evil and the only way she could be good was to help him, but rewinding a day. It would probably kill her, but she would die with a clean soul. Fast forward to Jensen, Archangel. He was kind and helpful, and wanted all the new residents to settle in. Then he went to bed, and she rewound. Space, time, moving backwards, her mind splitting. Morgan torturing the answers out of her, even as she tried to lose consciousness, couldn’t speak, he got the information he needed and left her. Blackness. Time, so much time with nothing. Then waking, seeing, eventually eating, walking, then talking. But no powers. 

She was cured, he said. She felt dead. 

Then, over time, little snippets of life, five seconds repeated here by accident, an intentional minute rewound. Little by little it cam back to her until it was more than it had ever been before.

But if she used it, if she used it like that again, it would kill her. But if it could save people, it was worth it. 

And then now, recognizing Jensen, Morgan’s questions, his knowledge of Kathryn and Jared’s mutations. Jared’s death, up close and personal. Jensen’s torture and execution. Running. So little time. Schematics of the explosion—two devices, like Haven was supposed to be. Not time. Felecia. In a hotel room. Alone. Minutes and the VAC would be there. No one would survive. They’d raze the neighborhood to kill her.

24 hours. That was all she could give, and did Kathryn understand?

“What—I don’t,” Kathryn began, but she did. They could rewind 24 hours. Alaina could take Kathryn _with_ her. Kathryn would retain all her memories of the day and all of the memories Alaina had shared, including the building schematics, the information about the bombs, and the location of Felicia.

“Felicia is key,” Alaina said aloud. “When I rewind, we’ll be in the alley next to the Auxiliary Secure VAC tower. We’ll broth briefly bilocate, but I can hold it long enough to drag our earlier selves there. You have a window of two hours to get Felicia and two hours to get Jared and Jensen. My absence will make time unwind differently. I won’t be there when Jeff goes to execute Jared. I’m pretty sure my absence will delay him, but if not, you might only have seconds to Act. Jensen needs to be conscious before you can move him, and he needs to have the pacemaker or he’ll die, don’t pull him before then.

“Got it, Felicia, Jared, Jensen, pacemaker…” Kathryn felt the overwhelming urge to vomit again, and bent to the side, the last few tendrils of spittle going into her bedroom carpet. “I can’t—I can’t thank you enough.”

“This is the only way I can begin to make things right,” Alaina said, and then she gripped Kathryn’s wrists again and tugged. 

Kathryn was being pulled backwards and folded through a straw. Her vision went black then white then gray then red, before bursting in a light show of pinn wheels and sparkles. He ears were popping, then rushing, then silent. Noise surged, fell away, surged again. There was the sense of moving backwards, jerking like a marionette, until finally, finally things stared to slow down. She was in the library alone and in the alley and in the library and in the she was tearing apart until. _Bang_ , it felt like her ears had been boxed, but Alaina’s hands were still death grips on her wrists. She opened her eyes, and they were in the alley. The sun a similar height in the sky, early afternoon, yesterday. 

Something was pulling her down, oh, Alaina’s legs were collapsing, her body crumpling to the ground. “Thank you,” Alaina whispered.

“Tha—thank you,” Kathryn tried to say, but the light had already left Alaina’s eyes by the time the words left her mouth.

~~~

**  
_Autoclean Motel 227, Seattle, PISA, Yesterday_   
**

Felicia latched the old-fashioned security chain and prepared to pull the door open a crack, careful to keep the door between her and whomever was outside, her handgun held in her left hand, out of sight. She didn’t want to deal with anyone right now. Not a maid. Not the clerk. Not another guest of the extremely low-rent, auto-sanitizing motel. And certainly not a cop or VAC agent or whatever other unpleasant surprise was going to greet her on the other side. She’d woken up from a nap half an hour ago with her heart pounding, and everything feeling about ten degrees off from where it was supposed to be. She didn’t know what caused the feeling, but she knew she’d felt it once before, and only once before. The night Haven was bombed and life as she knew it careened off a cliff. That she was feeling it _now_ while she and Jensen were both in PISA, in Seattle of all fucking places, home of VAC headquarters, was particularly terrifying. She had to believe it meant nothing good, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of phantom loss that had taken root in her gut. (That part was new; last time it had been phantom happiness juxtaposed against metaphysical dread. She really didn’t know what to make of that.) 

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself, flicked open the deadbolt, and yanked the door open an inch or so. “Who the fuck are you?” 

The person on the other side of the door was small, blonde, and athletically curvy. More or less exactly Felicia’s type. But she looked terrified and determined in equal measure, and was wearing a very rumpled, pretty nice suit that, combined with the athleticism, screamed fed so loud Felecia thought she’d go deaf. 

“I’m—” the woman started to speak.

Fuck this. “You a fed?” Felicia asked. She didn’t need honest answers, just answers. Her powers would tell her where the truth lay.

The blonde woman, blinked, swallowed, closed her mouth, opened her mouth to say something, closed it again, and then—at last—said, “Yes.”

Shit. “You VAC?” Felicia asked. It wasn’t like VAC didn’t know what her powers were. Maybe their agents had just given up on lying to her. She moved her gun into position, pressed against the door. Shooting an agent through the door wasn’t a great idea. But she wasn’t in a position to get a better angle, not without giving up her death grip on the door. She leaned her head to the side and tried to peer around the door in search of other agents. VAC knowing her and all, probably had a sniper trained on her. Well, the door was wood, if they hit her, her hand would spasm and pull the trigger. Wood shrapnel would probably spray all over her rapidly chilling corpse as it fell, but she would at least have the departing pleasure of at least wounding a VAC agent in the process.

“Yes,” came the answer, but the VAC agent immediately spread her hands to show they were open, “but please don’t shoot me or command me, I’m not here for you—”

Felicia’s hand tightened on the gun. A half-truth. The agent _was_ here for her…

“I mean I’m not here for you to kill you or arrest you or bring you in. I need your help, now. And if we can’t figure out how to solve this, Jensen and almost three thousand other mutants are going to die in less than twenty-four hours, and then they’re going to come for us.”

Felicia was already preparing to snark off a witty retort, when the truth of the statement slammed into her. That wasn’t ordinary truth, or a probabilistic prediction. It wasn’t conjecture or hyperbole. And it wasn’t truth in that the VAC agent believed what she was saying. It was certainty. Like a past fact. Historical event. Something that _had_ happened. And would always happen… but. 

But, it was also truth. There was a chance to change what had and would happen. But only if Felicia, personally helped out, out and fast. _What the actual fuck?_

“I know, it’s weird as hell. But a super-powerful timewinder just killed herself to make this possible, and I’ve already watched a building blow up and kill the mutants inside, and I watched Jensen get beheaded Game of Thrones-style on live TV. I already wasted time having my freakout, so I need you to _listen_ to what the truth is telling you, and let me in,” as she spoke, she reached out and touched Felicia’s hand where it had the door in a death grip.

The jolt that ran up Felicia’s arm made her jump back in surprise. A highlevel electrokinetic—with no visible markings—was a VAC agent?

The agent’s hand slid inside the door and deftly unhooked the chain. Which shouldn’t have really been possible, but there was too much slack in the chain, so it worked. She pushed her way the rest of the way inside.

“I’m Kathryn, Agent Kathryn Newton of the Variant Affairs Commission, not so secret now electrokinetic, and I need you, Felicia Day, most powerful truthsayer in the western hemisphere, to help me rescue Jensen Ackles and my boss, from the director of the VAC before he has them executed.” She bowed. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Your boss?” Felicia said, struggling to catch up, even as she dead-bolted the door behind them.

“Jared Padalecki, he’s the leader of VAC Team One, and also the mutant who faked an emergence to draw Jensen here to try to help with the 2973 mutants he was hiding from the VAC. Turns out he’s a reality warper, and no, they aren’t all dead either.” She glanced at the clock on the wall.

Of course, as an electrokinetic, even with impeccable control, she’d fry wearable electronics on the regular.

“We’ve got about three hours until Morgan realizes his pet not-so-depowered timewinder just sacrificed herself to reset a day, so let’s get a move on. I’m not blown yet, so my car will give us the cover and access we need.”

“Wait, a day?” Felicia stammered.

“Turns out, that’s how they really hit Haven. Morgan brainwashed a timewinder into gaining access, then made her rewind the day to pump her for information. Almost killed her, put her in a coma, and he thought, left her without powers. Only, they eventually go better. Which, yay,” Agent Newton, Kathryn, waved her hands in the air in faux celebration. “Turns out she’s a bit stronger than the brainwashing and chose to save all of us over herself. Now we gotta run.” She looked Felicia dead in the eye. “Are you with me?”

“Yes,” said Felicia. She only hoped they had enough time.


	11. Chapter 11

**_VAC Detention Center, Level 32, Seattle, PISA, Two Hours and 18 Minutes Later_ **

“Felicia?” Jensen asked in shock, “what are you doing here?” Jensen’s eyes flew back and forth from Agent Newton to Felicia and back, kicking himself for calling Felicia by name. “Did she, did she arrest you?” He was still thrown by Jared's apparent betrayal and didn't know where Newton fell in the grand scheme of things. After all, she'd been holding a gun on him when Morgan's stunbolt was causing a stroke.

Agent Newton rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything as she walked over to the holding cell and swiped her access card, punched in her security code, and leaned forward for a retinal scan. For a moment nothing happened, but Newton let out a sigh when the door unlocked. 

“Kathryn, what?” Jared asked his tone sounding almost as surprised as Jensen’s. “Morgan is going to know. You need to get out of here while you still can,” Jared protested, scrambling farther back into the cell. 

Newton shared a look with Felecia that Jensen couldn’t interpret. He was half-expecting Newton to grab Felecia and toss her into the cell along with him, but instead Newton turned to the card reader on Jensen’s cell and repeated the process. She stepped back from the door and watched it slide open. “Come on, we gotta go.” She beckoned Jensen with her hand, signaling him to get up.

Emotions warred in Jensen, flitting through his mind one after another, leaving him well and truly stuck, paralyzed, and not just on the right side of his body. He _wanted_ to get up, run, flee, and never look back, deflect anything that came his way and just sprint for the border. But he also felt responsible. After all these years, he _knew_ what happened to Haven wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who had betrayed them. The bomb hit while he was sleeping. He’d been unconscious after that and hadn’t been the one to make the decision to leave. But no matter how many times he talked about the attack with Dr. Collins, that guilt and responsibility lingered. And now here he was making another chance. He could take the option and run, get out, and maybe, just maybe if he was very lucky, he would come out alive. But if he did that, Agent Newton—and anyone else who got recaptured—would be held responsible. They would be executed in his place. It was bad enough that she’d already opened the door, but maybe they could play it off as Felicia having commanded her—

 _Jensen, stop._ Felecia’s thoughts pierced through the wall of panic and self-sacrifice that threatened to overwhelm him. _There’s no time to explain, we have to go, now._

"We can't rush, he's injured," Jared spoke up finally. "Morgan fucking shot him with a stun bolt, left it in..."

"Shit!" Felicia was saying dropping to her knees, and almost falling into Jensen's cell. She was pawing at Jensen's shirt, gasping at the bruising and bandages. 

“Look,” Newton was saying out loud, “The cameras are off right now, and that’s buying us some time.” She gave a knowing nod towards Jared whose expression was pinched. “And thanks to Felicia, we hacked the computers, so they’re not going to get alerted by me using my powers. No self-generated EMPs or lasers have been used so far,” she said giggling to herself. 

Jensen realized it was surprise. Newton had been suppressing her identity for so long, she wasn’t used to identifying herself as a mutant, and that was winding her up. 

“But Morgan’s due back any minute from planting bombs, and I’m not confident I can predict his reaction when he finds out his timewinder pet is gone,” Newton concluded. 

Images flashed in Jensen’s mind, Newton’s surface thoughts, images, memories preoccupying her mixed with memories that somehow weren’t hers—desperation, guilt, fear, humiliation, determination, pain, and loss… He saw a chains, shackles around wrists, his own neck snapping as he was hung, body swinging from the force of his fall, an explosion, people screaming, pain, pain, pain, running, Newton seeing herself covered in EM markings, searing cold, and then the sensation of being sucked backwards through a straw while his extremities were set on fire. He didn’t understand it. That had not happened yet. Jensen was still alive, his death wasn’t slated until tomorrow morning.

 _I never had a pet telepath, you know,_ Morgan’s voice, only Jensen had never heard this. _We’ve tried over the years, outside of an emergence, variants are extremely good at concealing themselves over distance._ A pause, a cruel laugh. _No, what I had was a pet timewinder._ It was something he'd said to Jared in the other timeline, before he'd...

And Jensen was puking in the corner, the rush of agony and pain and death coming back to him. 

"Shit, you'll pull your stitches," Kathryn was on her knees and pulling Jared out of the cell, careful of his broken ribs--how did she know they were broken? "Time travel sucks," she muttered. "Okay, there now, just let the pace maker do its thing. "I've got three more doses of the vascular stabilizer to repair the damage from the stroke, but I can't do anything for your ribs or cardiac situation until your heart rhythm stabilizes.

“What?” Jared asked, drawing Jensen’s focus back to the present. “What do you mean Morgan's pet timewinder is gone, gone how? Alaina was here with Morgan two hours ago.”

“It’s how he caught us,” Jensen murmured

"Yes, and two hours and twenty minutes ago, Alaina vanished out of here pretty suddenly. Morgan didn't notice because he was taunting you, and then he went to go set bombs. Then Alaina died in the alley while yanking me through time, and now we have twenty minutes to get out of her and get Jensen to a secure location to heal before we deal with disarming the bombs and hopefully saving everyone. I will give you all your memories of the other timeline as soon as we're clear, but not now!" Kathryn ordered. 

“Those weren’t your memories,” Jensen said. 

“A mixture of Alaina's and yours, I think," Kathryn answered with a weak smile. "Come on, think you can stand?"

“I’m still not really tracking,” Jared said, although now rather than clinging to the interior wall, he was bracing himself against the wall trying to use it to stand, crawling slowly towards his feet, pulling himself with his left arm, and having absolutely no luck getting his right leg to bear weight. 

Felicia looked like she was going to say something, but Newton shook her head. 

"I got him," she said, dropping her shoulder under Jensen's bad arm and guiding him to his feet. “Like I said, no time, long story short, Alaina was very talented timewinder, who he trained, then brainwashed and used her to breach Haven. She went, got intake, met everyone, confirmed schedules and positions, then rewound the day, yes, a whole day, and reported back. Then she fell into a coma for 6 months and when she came out, she was so fried she could only wind a few seconds here or there. Years pass, she secretly builds up her reserve again, and when faced with your deaths and the murder of two thousand nine hundred and seventy three mutants, she decided to rewind a day again taking me with her, event though doing so killed her. So, Morgan’s going to find his pet surprisingly missing and then dead, and probably all hell is going to break loose, so let’s go!” Newton said, pulling Jensen forward.

He saw it then, the lines on the back of her hand and wrist, beautiful, but faint, the same EM markings he had seen in the memory that wasn’t hers. He looked down at his own hand where the masker had been rubbed off, the telltale key pattern of a telekinetic, the saw-tooth pattern of a telepath, the shiny line of scar tissue between his wrist and the start of the graft. Despite all their differences they were the same, they were equal… she was taking a risk, but offering help, and asking him to help. Maybe the way to move forward wasn’t to let himself die, be executed for a massacre he hadn’t caused, but to help her stop another. 

_Please, Jensen_ , Felicia thought, the same guilt he felt moving through her. 

He reached out and took Newton’s hand, let her pull him to his feet. “Okay, let’s do this.”

~~~

**  
_That Night_   
**

“I don’t get this. There’s not enough time!” Kathryn said running her hands through her hair and tugging, as she did, the faint line of a EM marking appeared on her scalp as her hair moved, only to fade again as she moved her hand. The more time he spent around her, the more Jared noticed her little tics, and couldn’t help wondering if these were tics she’d developed to try to help hide, or if they were just normal expressions of her personality. 

Maybe there wasn’t a difference?

But whatever the cause, being around Kathryn made Jared feel more grounded. He was complete shit at being himself, at not hiding—it was beyond second nature, as he’d discovered as a twelve-year-old, he could, and would conceal his mutant nature without trying.

He was just glad to know he wasn’t the only one who felt like an alien in his own skin.

“I can contain the explosion,” Jensen said.

Reality ground to a halt. 

Kathryn stopped pacing.

Felicia stopped bouncing her stress ball against the wall.

And Jared slipped off the edge of the bed and caught himself, his jaw currently located somewhere around his navel.

“No, Jensen, we didn’t free you just to see you sacrifice yourself again,” Felecia protested, rolling over on the other bed to face him. “I’m not dishonoring Alaina’s sacrifice that way. You're barely stable. Push yourself too hard and you'll have a massive stroke and there won't be anything we can do to save you. You still don't have full control of your right side, how are you going to contain an explosion?"

“This isn’t, me trying to commit suicide, or sacrificing myself,” Jensen protested.

Felicia’s face screwed up in the expression Jared was fast learning meant she was using her powers and surprised by what they told her.

“Oh my god, I _can_ do it,” Jensen said, sounding somewhere between pleased and surprised. 

Felicia’s brow furrowed some more and Jared pulled himself up straighter on the bed, wincing as he jostled his broken ribs. Morgan had gotten a few well-placed kicks in while Jared was down from the stun bolt.

“It’s—truth that you are not sacrificing yourself or committing suicide, but stopping the explosion, that’s not true. But it’s not false either.”

“Great, does this mean he’s going to stop the explosion and still get blown up, or is your truthsaying talking a certain point of view here?” Kathryn asked. “Maybe someone else kills him in a way that isn’t a sacrifice.”

Jensen took a deep breath and let it out. “Maybe stop the explosion isn’t the right description… "Felicia, do you remember when we were kids, twenty maybe, and I let Chad and Sophie persuade me into messing with those fireworks?”

“You mean the time Jim caught you with a roman candle in front of you mid explosion and then we heard the loudest bang in the history of loud noises and entire box of fireworks lifted of the ground and _glowed_? Is that what you’re talking about?” Felicia asked.

Jensen shuddered, “All things considered, it’s a miracle my hearing wasn’t permanently fucked after that stunt, my ears were ringing for a week. Anyway, yeah that’s what I’m talking about.”

“You’re going to levitate a bomb in front of you while it explodes?” Jared asked.

Kathryn’s glare made him question how hard Jared had hit his head. She knew Jared had dropped and hit his head on the concrete floor after getting stunned, but in Alaina's memories, it hadn't looked too bad. Maybe his efforts to stop hiding were removing his verbal filter as well as the physical one?

“Sorry, shutting up,” he said holding up his hands in mock surrender.

“Yes and now, it’s less about what I did with the firecracker I _meant_ to blow up and more about what happened with the box of fireworks that detonated simultaneously and unexpectedly.”

“The crate, it didn’t explode,” Felicia remembered.

“Care to share with the class?” Kathryn said.

“I was trying to manipulate this roman candle, let the fuse burn down and then contain the explosion as it happened. I did it three or four times, levitating the firecracker in front of me so I wouldn’t burn myself, started out ten feet away and got closer and closer with each try as I figured out how to _hold the explosion together_ , for lack of a better word. Holding it in, controls the concussive blast, the pressure. I can keep the oxygen away, slowing the fire, and all that’s left is heat. Whatever heat from the initial blast, and even that is small, so small compared to what it should be. 

“I was maybe a foot from the roman candle, and Jim comes up and asks what the hell I’m doing. I just turned to him and was about to say how cool it was, when I felt this _pop_ deep in my gut. I didn’t know what it was, but a split second later, we all heard this deafening boom. It knocked me on my ass, but more out of surprise at how loud and close it was. When I got over the initial shock and looked over at the wooden crate where the fireworks were stored, and it was glowing and hovering three five centimeters off the ground. Jim walked over and opened it, and he burned his hands on the wood because it was so hot, but even two feet away, it was only a little warm, and Jim could stand next to it without getting hurt.

“He reached down and flipped open the lid, and every single firework inside had exploded. Apparently, when I pulled the roman candles out of the crate, I was sloppy, and I caught one of the other fuses and pulled it, detached it from its firework. But then the fuse kind of landed half in the crate and trailing outside it. Earlier, when I’d been standing farther away from the roman candle, it had sparked more, and the sparks had drifted onto the fuse. A one in a million chance. Maybe less, and that fuse burned undetected because we were too distracted by me acting like a showy asshole to notice. Every firework in that box exploded, but didn’t. The explosion happened, but the concussive blast, pressure, heat, fire, were all contained. The box that was holding the fireworks was intact, unharmed.”

Jensen let out a long breath and turned to look at Jared. “It was instinct, I sensed the blast before it happened, and I reacted. The size of that blast, we should have been Jell-O, soup, I was standing so close there should have been nothing left, but I contained the explosion and held the blast together, kept the box from exploding.” He rubbed at the blank expanse of his right forearm, another tick Jared had noticed over time.

Jared tried to imagine what it would be like to have his markings taken from him, not by his will or desire to hide, but permanently through a choice to which he hadn’t consented, a choice that had saved his life nonetheless. He’d probably stare and rub at his wrongly naked skin a lot too. 

“We know there are two bombs. We know where one is, and that Newton—I mean Kathryn—can knock it out. We know we can’t find the location of the other bomb. Felicia keeps getting falsehood anytime we hint that way, and the only person who knows where the damn bomb is—”

“Is Morgan,” Jared supplied. 

Kathryn frowned at that. It had been a sobering realization when they realized the schematics Alaina shared with Kathryn only showed the location of one of the bombs.

“And we can’t go near him, we need him distracted, not on top of us,” Jensen added.

“Anything we try to do with Morgan just leads to our deaths,” Felicia said.

“So, if we can’t find it, and we can’t ask where it is, and there isn’t enough time for Kathryn to zap both bombs, we let it blow up, and I stop it, hold the building together until everyone can get out.” Jensen nodded at Jared, “You’ll make sure they see only what we want them to see,” he looked at Felicia, “you’ll make sure we learn what we can and command enough people to clear us a path to the border.” He smiled at Kathryn, “You’re gonna hit the other bomb with an EMP and zap everything electronic VAC throws our way, the more distracting the better.”

“You’re going to let it blow up after we’re clear,” Felicia mused, again with that perplexed, surprised look on her face that said her powers were telling her something unexpected.

“Not blow up,” Jensen clarified. “It will have already blown up, I’m just going to keep the building form falling on us until we’re clear, then let it go.”

“Can you do that?” Jared asked incredulously. “I mean, I know you’re supposed to be like Starkiller powerful, if you wanted to you could pull the moon out of orbit and drop it on the earth, bye-bye everyone, but that’s theoretical. I mean, you’ve never actually knocked a planet out of orbit.”

“He may have played with an asteroid or two when we were younger,” Felicia admitted.

Kathryn’s eyes went wide with awe, “Really?” 

Felicia nodded.

“But that’s intentional. I mean, you presumably, knew what you were trying to do, and you did it. I get it that you stopped a box of fireworks from turning you all into red paste, but how do you know that wasn’t a one-time thing? Or that a box of fireworks isn’t the maximum if you’re caught unaware?”

“Because he’s done it before.” 

Three heads, including Jared’s, swiveled as one. It was Kathryn that had spoken.

“Truth,” Felicia whispered.

“That’s what happened at Haven, why you were injured so badly, but you got out, why one side of the compound was so much more intact, that people could get out, while everything else was just, wiped off the map,” Kathryn continued. "It wasn't that you got lucky and one of the missiles didn't explode, you stopped it."

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Jared, holding up his hands in the gesture for “stop” and immediately regretting the way it pulled at his ribs. “You didn’t exactly come out of that unscathed, and you're well, fairly _scathed_ now.”

“But he was asleep, and that was a missile,” Kathryn finished.

“This time I’ll be very much awake. I can do this,” Jensen affirmed.


	12. Chapter 12

**_Abandoned Office Tower, Seattle, PISA, 0400 Hours_**  
As the building shook around them, Jensen held. He didn’t collapse. He didn’t falter. He just kept pushing his hands together as the explosion tried to grow, again, and again, and again… Jared cocked his head to the side. It wasn’t stopping.

“What’s wrong?” he said as he came up on Jensen’s right side. When he didn’t get a response, he repeated the question in thought. Jensen’s bad ear, there was no way for him to make out the words over the noise of three thousand people running down thirty-something flights of stairs, or levitating down the elevator shaft. Jared had to give it to Sterling and the other telekinetics he’d been training in the past few months. Their control and mastery of telekinesis was beautiful. They’d never get everyone out with the stairs and the one working elevator otherwise.

“There’s both a secondary and tertiary device. It essentially keeps re-exploding, and I have to keep containing it,” he looked up at Jared, beads of sweat pooling on his forehead and dripping into his eyes. “I’ve got to give it to Morgan, I think he figured out exactly how I survived and how we got out of Haven.”

Jared frowned. “Well, if he has, he never let on.” He shrugged, then shuddered at the phantom feeling of a gunshot blooming on his chest, his heart not beating. “Then again, he never let on that he had me made years ago and suspected you from the moment you showed up, so that’s not saying much.”

“Dude killed his own sister,” Jensen said, softly. “She was the reality warper scientist—he manipulated her to turn public opinion against all of us. Felicia said he’s terrified of anything he can’t control, and the hatred and rage he channels from that pretty much wipes out anything else in him.”

Jared cocked an eyebrow in question.

“Kathryn shared her memory with me, and I shared it with Felicia, who was able to truthsay off a third-hand memory of a television broadcast.” He shook his head despite the obvious strain. “And people think I’m the terrifyingly powerful one.” 

A snort of disbelief escaped Jared’s lips. “Jensen, you’re containing multiple explosions… with your mind. I think there’s plenty of terrifying power to go around.”

Jensen grunted and nodded, Jared’s words apparently drawing his attention back to the arduous task that was currently taking most of his power. “I’m pretty sure Morgan rigged this to try to burn me out. If I have to keep containing this, I’ll overtax and slip into a coma—he figured that much out from the aftermath of Haven. This thing is tied into the gas main. If I let go, or I burn out, the whole thing is going to go, and if I try to forcibly disconnect it, there’s a very good chance it blows any way, and if it doesn’t the force I’d need to rip out the connections will destabilize the building.”

Jared thought it over. He wondered if he could just _will_ an explosion out of reality. If he did that though, would the explosion really stop, or would it really explode and kill everyone, and they would only be alive as long as he maintained the illusion of a change? Sometimes his changes were permanent, usually they were semi-permanent. He didn’t know if he could take a chance with that—it was back to gambling with nearly 2973 lives—well 2977, with him, Jensen, Felicia, and Kathryn in the mix. 

As Jared was lost in thought, Felicia and Sterling came running up. “The 38th floor is clear, as is every floor above it,” Sterling said, his chest heaving with the strain of jogging half a block after levitating a thousand or so people down about 750 feet. “As soon as the stairwell empties, we’ll be good to go.”

Felicia looked from Sterling back to Jared and then to Jensen. “Well that’s the good news. Bad news is, VAC is coming and they’re coming fast. I just ran into what I think is the rest of Jared and Kathryn’s old team and Jared’s old-old team by the loading dock. They know something’s up and they’re not buying the masking. Morgan must have convinced them everything about the building is a lie, and they’re looking for a way in. I commanded the lot of them to get the fuck away, but that will wear off after a couple dozen blocks or so. If we’re lucky they might run off to Belltown, but they’ll be back. We’ve gotta go.” She cocked her head to the side, the way Jared had seen Jensen do so many times, and realized they must share that tic from years of living and working together, back before Haven fell. “By the way, what is the plan? Please tell me there’s a plan for actually getting folks across the border that is more sophisticated than me yelling commands at people, Jensen deflecting bullets, and Jared trying to make us invisible.

This time Sterling looked at Felecia incredulously. “We were going to commandeer a train using your hacking expertise and Kathryn’s electrokinesis. Jared was going to hide the train; while Jensen and I and the other telekinetics were going to, block people, deflect bullets, and the like. Briana’s going to read anyone we need to read, for you to, yes command, and then Yadira can offer extra cover with a wind storm, or teleport anyone who needs it.” 

Jensen must have either read Felicia’s thoughts or seen something in her expression, because he shook his head and said. “Think nightcrawler, not blink. She’s gotta be in contact with the people, and it’s gotta be line of sight, more or less. Yadira can’t teleport 3000 people to Canada from here.

Jared looked around at the barely controlled chaos. They were so close, but so close to being trapped. There had to be something. He believed it. They could do it. “Jensen,” he said at last, his voice cracking. “What if, instead of stopping it, when we get everyone clear, you let it explode, only you control the blast so the building comes down in a way that doesn’t destabilize everything around it.”

“What?” Jensen asked.

“It’s not that far to the train station from here. Ten minutes on foot, and it’s still pre-dawn. I can hide us while we go. If you wait until the last second, can you rip the connection to the gas main as Yadira teleports you out? She can get you clear enough to not die when the building comes down.”

“I think so,” Jensen answered, uncertainly.

“How long until you’ll overtax?” Jared asked, judging by the way Felicia was giving him side-eye, she’d figured out there was something going on between the two of them. 

“Twenty, maybe thirty minutes.”

“And if you want to have anything leftover to help us escape?” 

Jensen glared up at him. Jared was afraid Jensen would say it was already too late, but instead he said, “maybe five minutes. But any longer and—no guarantees.”

Jared ran over the nascent plan in his mind. Jensen blinked and looked at him.

“No, Jared, that’s crazy.”

“Care to let us in?” Sterling asked.

“The stairwell’s almost clear,” Jensen said. 

_It’s clear now_ came Briana’s insistent thoughts across from across the building. 

“Correction it’s clear now.” Jared paused, swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Everyone make a run for the train station, except Jensen and Yadira. I can hide us all as we go. As long as we run, in five minutes, when Jensen has to clear out, we’ll be clear of the blast, in case things don’t go exactly to plan. At the five-minute mark, Yadira teleports Jensen as far as she can go towards the train station. Jensen yanks the connection to the gas main and directs the collapse. Building comes down like a giant pancake. We have a massive distraction about five blocks from VAC headquarters. We go with the rest of the train. I keep it hidden, everybody—does their thing.”

“Jared, no,” Jensen said shaking his head, even more sweat building on it. “Can you even—”

But the answer was simple. When I start to burn out, I lose control of myself first.” Jared pushed down the snarling, animal of panic that rose in his chest every time he thought about letting his true self be seen. The air rippled around him, and he knew from the surprise on Felicia and Sterling’s faces, they were seeing him as he really was. “As long as I don’t mask myself, I can hold it all. And hey,” he shrugged, I’m one more distraction.”

They all grudgingly agreed, and Jared pressed a needy kiss to Jensen’s lips before he ran off. 

Les than five minutes later, when they were all still too close to the tower for comfort, a boom echoed across the city like a thunderclap. A wave of warm, compressed air smacked Jared in the face and tried to buffet him off his feet. 

Two seconds later, he heard an electrical pop. There was Yadira, as promised, holding a very shaky looking Jensen.

On the skyline the offset, arching, unfinished tower, swayed and began to fall.

“Jared,” I don’t have the energy to contain that much dust particulate, so we gotta go, now,” Jensen panted as Yadira set him on his feet. 

Jared nodded, reached out for Jensen hand, and set off at a run, confident that somewhere up ahead, Felicia, Briana, and Kathryn were stealing them a train.

As they ran, they heard the wail and moan of approaching sirens, but every single one, passed them by, even with Jared displaying his full markings unconcealed from the public. Everyone was running towards the collapsing tower. No one was following them.

~~~

Taking an invisible train towards a mountain pass and a border was a jarring experience, Jensen found.

While they were passing through the outskirts of Seattle and its suburb, several times Jensen had had to physically move cars off the train tracks at intersections because there was nothing to indicate to the cars that a train was there, and while Jared’s control was mind-bending, Jensen didn’t want to test what would happen if Jared willed the train to pass through the cars.

On several other occasions, Jensen had watched as police cars and VAC vehicles with their sirens and lights on had driven towards them, only to pass them by. VAC was having little luck pinpointing exactly where their over-stuffed twenty-car train was headed. Which was good, because with so many of them, they were packed in like sardines. If not for Kathryn’s manipulation of the train itself, there was no way it would be able to run, especially as it climbed in elevation towards the pass.

Arriving at the border complex itself had been even stranger. Briana had reached out to the customs agents on the Canadian side and told them there was an invisible train incoming with 2977 asylum seekers, all mutants, requesting invocation of Section 20 of the Seven Nations’ Treaty on behalf of herself and the other Canadian citizens in their midst. If that didn’t work, Felicia was going to get on the PA system, with Kathryn routing it to outside speakers to command everyone to let them pass.

Briana’s request had worked, and the train had crept up to the border, while perplexed and doubtful looking Canadian officials had lowered the barriers on their side. 

Unfortunately, they had gotten only the first three cars across the border when the VAC had shown up and opened fire. Now Jensen, along with Sterling and his trainees, were deflecting bullets, and in Jensen’s case, literally shoving helicopters back, up, and away out of range, while the mutant refugees ran from car to car up to the front of the train to exit through the first three cars.

The rest of the train, where Jensen was, was stuck in the no-man’s-land of sorts between the PISA and Canadian gates with some of the cars technically on PISA soil and others on Canadian soil. 

He felt another wave of intent as a black SUV came bouncing up the tracks and tried to ram the invisible train from behind. Realizing what was happening, Jensen reached out and _yanked_ the SUV off the tracks, tossing it to a skid across a parking lot on the PISA side of the crossing. 

“This is the last car, then we’re clear,” someone yelled at Jensen where he was crouched in the doorway of the eleventh car.

Of course, as if to jinx it, at that moment, another helicopter roared over the treetops and began its decent to land in the PISA-side parking lot. As Jensen was trying to push the helicopter back, and keep it from landing, he almost missed the intent of the sniper strapped into a second helicopter that came over the rise behind it. At the last second, Jensen pushed with all his might, shoving both helicopters back and deflecting the bullet back at the first helicopter. It must have hit a fuel tank, because the force of the resulting explosion knocked Jensen on his ass. 

Dazed, he was confused by the sudden influx of noise and pings of bullets. 

“Shit, Jensen, it’s time to go!” it was Sterling who called out, squeezing his way back down the train around the throngs of people running to get out. As suddenly as they had started the bullets stopped, and then Stirling was levitating them both, outside along the train until finally they crossed the border.

“Thanks,” Jensen croaked, as he landed on the ground in a slump. Jared, in all his infinity-adorned glory came running over and dropped to his knees by Jensen’s side.

“We did it, Jensen. You did it. We all did it—we’re clear. I dropped the illusion on the train, but VAC can’t see anyone on this side of the border. Come on,” he leaned forward and kissed Jensen’s forehead. “Stay with me.”

“Thanks for—” Jensen tried, but he couldn’t make the words come out. “Thanks for, calling for me,” he managed, before the strain of the past twenty-four hours caught up with him and the world blinked out.

~~~

**  
_Epilogue_  
**

“It’s ready,” Felicia said, her voice and physical proximity drawing Jensen out of his mid-morning nap.

He was curled up against Jared, lying half on Jared’s chest, and when he moved, Jared stirred. 

Jensen hated to wake him, but this step was important for both of them. For everyone.

Two months after their escape from Seattle, and Jared and Jensen were both still weak. Jensen still had some days, where his right arm wouldn't cooperate, or his leg crumbled. Jared was so burned out from manipulating so many different elements for so long, he hadn’t even tried to mask his nature, his markings on full display for everyone to see, although Jensen was willing to bet that was at least as much not wanting to as it was not being able to.

Misha, who had seen them both in _person_ this time, said Jared was healing and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t regain his full abilities again, or that it would take ten years to recharge as it had apparently with Alaina. But Jensen still worried.

Of course, Misha was _more_ worried about Jensen, and kept muttering about permanent brain damage and increased risk of massive stroke. Jensen wasn't getting the pacemaker removed any time soon. But he was okay with that, he was already as healed as he needed to be.

That was the one thing about him that made him so _unique_ in the eyes of many. While expending all his energy did knock him out and temporarily incapacitate him, as soon as he regained consciousness, it was back. Of course other injuries could render him unconscious longer, but they'd finally figure out, it wasn't Jensen's powers that put him in a coma, that was just his body's response to healing. Now that he was awake, he let his senses spread out, felt the currents and shifting mass around him—Jared breathing beneath him, Felicia standing nearby, Kathryn in the hall, then more people in more rooms, the bones of the building shifting imperceptibly in the wind, the air, the trees, the ground, beyond, outer space, the moon, and in between, satellites, thousands of them some in polar orbits, spy satellites doing their long loop-the-loops, equatorial satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Of course, the best news of all since he woke up was learning that Morgan was dead. The sniper round Jensen had deflected had killed Morgan as well as his helicopter. Part of Jensen didn't believe it. There would always be a part of him that remembered Morgan rambling like a madman as he walked Jensen to his execution, always the memories of Morgan watching all, popping out of the woodwork at the worst possible time. He expected that sort of behavior to mean Morgan was somehow, immortal. But he was just a person. A flawed, misguided, fallible person, and now, for the first time, people around the world, even in PISA were starting to question Morgan's teachings, his actions, and his words.

Jensen looked up at the sky. Up there was one satellite in particular, waiting for him to make a broadcast that might change all their fates. Thanks to Kathryn’s skill with electromagnetic fields and Felicia’s combined truthsaying and hacking ability, they had an uplink, and he and Jared were about to make history.

“Come on, Jared,” wake up, he prompted. 

Jared stirred, his eyes slowly blinking open, the smile on his face was its own reward. “We ready to go?”

“We’re ready,” Jared agreed. “Let’s go make history and tell our people we’ve built a new Haven safe from the VAC’s grasp.

The End


End file.
